


Strange Honey

by FunkyMeihem



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Beekeeeper | Mei-Ling Zhou, Beekeeper Mei, F/M, Farmer Roadhog, Farmer | Mako Rutledge, Hayseed Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes, Scarecrow Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 20:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14268678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyMeihem/pseuds/FunkyMeihem
Summary: Mei-Ling Zhou is conducting agricultural research as an assistant beekeeper. Strange things start happening around her farm, and all signs point to an odd field of sunflowers, and the  scarecrow that guards them.Featuring: Beekeeper Mei, Hayseed Junkrat, and Farmer Roadhog





	1. Chapter 1

“Winifred, I know you’re out there! You’re a bad girl! You know you’re being bad and you just keep doing it! You’re going to end up getting stung and then I’m not going to feel sorry for you! …Well, maybe a little sorry…But you are in so much trouble!” She slammed the door and thundered down the rickety steps to the back porch, irritation in every step.

Mei hadn’t had time to put on all her beekeeping gear when she’d seen the familiar pink and brown-spotted streak go hurtling past her view from the duct-taped mesh of the screen door. Once she knew the pesky pig had made yet another break for it, she’d thrown on whatever was nearby and had gone after her. But a plastic poncho and a net helmet offered little protection from the little stingers and their owners, and the bees were buzzing about in clouds nearly as thick as the wet summer air.

At least Winifred was smart enough to give the hives themselves a wide berth. The young sow gave a sniff in their direction, but thought better of it and took off in the other direction. Mei was hot on her heels and wielding a net in both hands. She had no idea if the net would be helpful in capturing an escaped pig or not, but it was better than nothing. And Winifred seemed to think it was all great fun, speeding up into a trotting gallop as she led the disgruntled student on yet another merry chase; past the hives and the little back gardens, past the animal pens, and out towards the wider fields themselves.

At least the bees were ignoring them both for now. She occasionally felt one bump into her poncho or the helmet’s netting, but they were more intent on maintaining their airborne journeys for now, on their way to or from the surrounding crops and flowers. And Winifred, darn her hide, seemed to be enjoying herself more than she should have. The young pig would even turn back to look at Mei when she slowed down, only to kick back into a run the moment she got near. It was a all a game to her.

Mei did not think it nearly so amusing. Not again.

She’d taken on this job as an assistant beekeeper not for the pay, but for her studies. Her graduate degree was riding on the paper she was writing, on the effects of climate adaptation in bees and pollination of the local agriculture. Taking a job in the field (literally, in the field) was a vital part of her studies and her reputation as a researcher. And in her naivety, she had thought maybe that a summer in the countryside would be relaxing.

Unfortunately for her, she had chosen a farm with famously temperamental and difficult bees, and an even more temperamental and difficult owner. The free room and board was barely worth it, and even if the honey on her breakfast toast was amazingly delicious, she had the distinct feeling she was being taken advantage of. Mr. Rutledge had put her to work doing the most unpleasant, grungiest chores that didn’t even further her studies, and in her first week she had already had several stings while she was still figuring out the finer points of the suit.

Chasing after escaped pigs definitely hadn’t been on her sign-up list. But now Mr. Rutledge was off at the store, and the very first time she’d been left in charge of things here, Winifred had decided to make things hard for her. Mei preferred the bees, frankly. At least they just wanted to get their jobs done, just like her. But Winifred was one of Mr. Rutledge’s favorites, and Mei wasn’t about to let the little cretin run loose and risk Mr. Rutledge thinking that she wasn’t a responsible person.

She tried cajoling, lowering her net and opening both arms as she approached the errant sow. “Heeeere, girl. Come here, come here. Don’t you want to go back to all your brothers and sisters? I bet they miss you? No! Noooo…” She lifted her voice as Winifred grunted and sniffed, turning towards a row of squash nearby. “No! Don’t you eat that! You bad girl, don’t you dare! NO!”

Winifred promptly nosed her snout into the yellow dirt and fastened her jaws around one of the vegetables, ripping it up out of the ground and carrying it away as she took off yet again. Mei made a dash for her, swinging her net and missing by a mile. The cloven-hoofed menace left a wake of destruction behind her, taking them further and further out into the reaches of the farmland.

Huffing and puffing behind her netted hat, the plastic poncho did Mei no favors as it trapped in her body heat in the already-stifling air. She was sweating up a storm, unable to wipe away the moisture pouring from her dusty face as she remained in hot pursuit. Down the dirt roads, across a pasture, and through two fields of soy and corn, she followed them. Pushing through rows and rows of green stalks and leaves, she finally shot free of the cornfield, and stumbled into a field that was choked with wild sweetgrass and weed blooms. Past a single stunted old tree out among the grass, a row of green and yellow rose up.

It was a wall of overgrown sunflowers.

This was a field she had never seen before, far beyond the reaches of her tour of the farm. Was this the same property? Did the farm even grow sunflowers? She wasn’t entirely sure. They were giant things, tall green stalks growing so close together they resembled a tangled forest, each one topped with a cheerful, dazzling yellow and brown bloom. And they were so tall and large, she felt almost sure they must have been some species she hadn’t heard of, maybe even bio-engineered. She wasn’t really a tall girl to begin with, no, but these sunflowers towered over her like she had never seen. It was a solid barrier of overgrown green and yellow that would be nearly impossible to pass through.

And…where had Winifred gone?

She found a half-eaten squash at the edge of the sweetgrass, but it was well up past her knees and the pig could have headed in any direction. And unfortunately for her, hog tracking hadn’t been one of her studies. And not only that, but the field was thick with bees. The sweetgrass and wildflowers were causing a frenzy, and Mei didn’t want to disturb them while she was wearing such little protection. But she did see how the grass was bent down in some places, and over the shrieking of cicadas and the buzzing of bees, she thought she could hear a faint grunting sound.

There was nothing for it. She had to get that pig back before Mr. Rutledge got home.

Very, very carefully, Mei stepped into the field. Picking her way through the little trail of bent grass, she tried to stay light on her feet. The edges of her plastic poncho breezed the tops of the field, and the insects hummed around her. Occasionally she heard the thicker and heavier buzz of a hornet or wasp too, their distinctive tones hurrying by her as they hurried to pollinate the flowers too.

“Ow!”

There was a prickle of pain on one of her legs. Something hadn’t taken kindly to the intrusion and had stung her. She looked down, hand lifted to brush it away, but there was only a red spot already starting to swell. Wincing, she bit her teeth into her lip and continued forward. She could put ointment on it later. Along with all the other—

“Owch!” Another sting, and this time she saw the stinger still lodged in the side of her calf, from the honeybee that had given its life just to poke her a bit. “Please don’t, I’m just trying to pass through, please!”

Pleading didn’t work so well with bugs. But then again, wading thigh-deep into a field full of stinging insects probably hadn’t been the best idea. Only when she heard a familiar grunt-grunt-grunting nearby, she realized she had at least narrowed in on Winifred. Maybe she could at least get her in the net and drag her out of here before any more damage was done.

Winifred was chowing down on the rest of the stolen squash, grumbling and chewing noisily. So intent on her meal, that she didn’t even notice Mei coming up behind her. The shadow figure loomed up with its net raised high, and only then did Winifred’s ears shoot upward as she shot up off her haunches and ran forward with a panicked “ _REEEEEE! REEEEEEEEEE!”_

“Darn you, Winifred! Ow! Ow, get back here!”

Mei chased after the pig, trying to ignore more stings that came her way as Winifred trampled more grass and disturbed the pollinators at their jobs. The buzzing grew louder. Mei swing her net again and missed, and the pig jolted to the side and ran blindly towards the sunflowers, squealing all the while. Mei was forced to give chase, and the two sent up a trail of angry bees as they went.

Suddenly Winifred’s squeal became a shriek, and Mei saw that the pig was trying to hit the brakes. Her hooves scrambled in the grass, kicking up dirt as she reeled to a stop just before she would have entered the tangle of sunflowers ahead. The little sow stood there for a moment, back bowed almost into a sit as she stared into the wild green and black ahead of her. Mei lifted her net again—

Something moved in the flowers ahead. The stalks shifted and clattered somewhere deeper within, like something was moving amongst them. Blinking, Mei forgot the pig altogether and twisted her hold on her net, holding it like a shield in front of her as she staggered a few steps back. It moved again, making its way through the shadowy stalks. An animal of some kind, no doubt, but what? Dog? Cat? Deer?

Winifred uttered a noise that was almost a scream, suddenly taking off again as she ran right between Mei’s legs and off into the opposite direction, squealing rapidly growing rapidly fainter. The rattling ceased abruptly as she fled, the unseen creature freezing. Maybe it had just taken notice of Mei and was as scared of her as she was of it? It seemed to have paused, but she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched. The hair on the back of her sweaty neck prickled all at once.

“H-hello?” she asked aloud, tilting her head. What could it have been that had scared Winifred so much? She quickly pulled her poncho on over her shoulders, slamming her hat more firmly onto her head. No matter how hot it was, if she needed to run away-

There was a strange little noise from the sunflowers up ahead, as the leaves started rattling all over the field despite there being no wind. Mei took another step back, eyebrows shooting upward, and was almost ready to book it back in the other direction when there was another sound…a buzzing sound.

She looked behind her and saw that the disturbed bees and wasps had lifted into the air, angrily droning all together. They faced her down, but were acting…strangely? They all hung there in the air, hovering and staying in one position— as if waiting for some signal. She’d never seen an insect wait before, but that’s what they were doing. Waiting…To attack her?

Mei nearly dropped her net, turning her back to the flowers and facing the cloud of angry buzzing. Taking a step or two back, she lifted both hands in a defensive surrender. Her glasses slid crooked on the sweat pouring from her face, but she could swear that she saw a shadow of movement behind her. And she couldn’t look; because in front of her, the insects all moved forward towards her in one dark furious cloud—

“I’m sorry!”

Mei made herself very small, cowering down in a hunch that she knew wouldn’t protect her if she got swarmed. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing to, or why begging would help. But it was instinctive and she simply didn’t know what else to do.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

The buzzing continued in front of her, but when she peeked open one eye, she could see that the little blurred forms had all stopped again. They hovered there again, and then began to drift backward. One by one, they retreated, and zoomed off into the wildflowers and sweetgrass once more.

Baffled and alarmed, she turned to look into the sunflowers. But whatever shadow she thought she had seen was gone, or simply had never been. But that eerie prickling feeling was still tickling at the nape of her neck, and to say she was uneasy was an understatement. She awkwardly straightened her glasses through her netting, sweat dribbling down her body from heat and fear.

_She shouldn’t stay here…_

The field of sweetgrass lay open before her, the bees parted into two groups on either side. A clear path lay between them, giving her a chance to go. And she took it. Grasping her net in shaking hands, she clutched it like a spear as she warily stepped back through the overgrowth, heading back towards the relative safety of the farm and away from the sunflowers. The bees closed ranks behind her as she went, urging her on.

The cicadas kept screaming and somewhere far away, a crow started calling. But the bees were no longer angrily droning, only peacefully buzzing about the field as if nothing had been amiss in the first place. She stopped only when she got to the edge of the growth line, to the little strip that separated the wildflowers and grass from the more cultivated crops of soybeans. Looking back, she saw the sunflowers standing tall in the distance.

The blooms stood bright and cheery in the afternoon sun, just like before. Nothing seemed amiss, except for what looked like a speck of color out in the middle of the yellow? Were those clothes? A quick squint, and she could make out the ragged-looking old scarecrow that stood hanging from its pole out in the middle of the blooms. Strange…She must have simply missed seeing it out there before, with the flowers being so tall.

No time to worry about such things now. She’d never heard of bees acting the way that those bees had acted. She’d never read about insects having…self control? Why had they changed their minds about attacking her? What an awfully strange and confusing thing to happen. Wherever Winifred had led her, it certainly had—

She’d completely forgotten that she was still pig-less. Her chase had been most unsuccessful, and she still had an errant sow to hunt down. With one last, unsure glance back towards the sunflowers, she bolted back towards the fields and to the dirt road that would take her back to the farm.

Mei had gone so far away that she hadn’t even heard Mr. Rutledge’s truck rattle its way home. By the time she reached the borders of the yard, it was sitting in the drive. He and the truck were cast into the massive afternoon shadow of the crooked old farmhouse, and he was unloading bags of groceries onto the front porch. And to her irritation and embarrassment, Winifred was already there too. The little pig grunted and wiggled and was repeatedly getting under his feet, trying to stick her greedy head into the produce bags.

“Oh…Mr. Rutledge!” Mei bashfully made her way up from the side yard, pulling off her poncho and hat in a rather guilty way. “Welcome back. I’m really sorry about Wini, she—”

“Mm. She does that. Tried to chase her?” Mr. Rutledge’s baritone voice rumbled from somewhere under his hat, as he pulled Winifred out of a bag of cabbages and hefted her up under one arm despite her protests. “Go inside and put something on those. You’ll get used to them.”

“Put what on what?” she echoed, before looking down to see that her pale legs were marred with little red swollen marks from fresh stings, swollen into little welts. “Oh. Okay. Don’t you need help with the bags?”

“I’ve got them.”

She just nodded, feeling strangely chastised for her failure. Leaving the naughty pig to her owner, Mei creaked open the front screen door and headed into the cooler interior of the house. Heading to the downstairs bathroom, she found the twisted tube of ointment and sat down atop the toilet to begin rubbing it into her bee stings.

Her legs had taken a few shots, but it had almost been worse. A lot worse. What had that been all about, anyway?

Maybe Mr. Rutledge knew. It was his farm, after all, and his bees. And if his bees acted in such a strange way, there might be more to this research paper than she had first thought.

* * *

 

She decided to bring it up at dinner.

“Mr. Rutledge, can I ask you something?”

She always tried to be polite around Mr. Rutledge. Not just because of her good manners, but because she knew he was a particular man who simply disliked being disturbed. The man lived alone, worked alone, and ran his business alone, and that was how he said he preferred things. He spoke little, usually only to tell her to do things; and beyond seeing him at meals in the morning and evening, and occasionally watching television or doing a puzzle together, they rarely talked casually.

“Hm?” He paused, cup of coffee halfway raised to his scarred lips. That was the most usually saw of of him; was his lips, and perhaps the bottom of his nose, if she was lucky. He was almost always wearing his own beekeeping helmet, or a low hat, and kept his head down. Locks of stringy gray hair hung from his hat now, obscuring his eyes, but she knew he was looking her way.

The very last of the dying orange sunlight streamed in through the old glass panes of his kitchen windows. They sat across from each other at his table, with its charming red-and-white checkered patterned tablecloth, and the cute piggy-themed salt and pepper shakers, sitting next to the piggy-themed flower vase filled with fresh lavender, which was next to the piggy-themed coffee mugs still steaming with brew. She’d never been much for evening coffee, but Mr. Rutledge drank it often. But it never seemed to help much. The man always seemed so tired.

He’d made an attempt at cooking for them, but he had admitted to knowing only a bare few dishes and not all of them were very good. So he had made them pancakes for dinner, again. Pancakes, eggs, and fruit; all with fresh honey. There was always honey. The last few bites of her pancake were soaked through with the stuff, sitting sweet on her tongue as she finished them off.

“Your farm is pretty big, isn’t it? Do you own all the land around here?” she asked.

“…Mm.”

“So you own the big fields with the corn and soy and the pumpkins, those are all yours? Right?”

“Mm.”

“What about the big field of sunflowers? The one way off to the…east, I think it was? Northeast, maybe?”

He paused at that, and slowly lowered his cup of coffee back to the table without taking a sip. “Sunflowers…”

“Mmhm. It is east, isn’t it? There’s a big field full of sunflowers, with a-”

“What were you doing out that far?”

She blinked, fumbling with her glasses a moment. “I…got a little lost when I was chasing Winifred,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. But something about his reactions made her feel suddenly more guarded. “Are those your fields too?”

“There’s nothing out that far,” he responded gruffly. “No need to be out there. Don’t go out that way again, understand?”

“But I thought I saw something?”

His head turned very slightly, but very sharply. “…What did you see.”

It wasn’t a question, but dangerously close to a calm demand. His eyes were upon her, and she suddenly felt cornered. Bringing her coffee cup up in front of her mouth for a moment, she mumbled from behind it. “I mean…I didn’t see it. But I heard something big. There was some sort of animal, I think? It really scared Winnie. So we both ran.”

Should she have told him about the bees? Had he ever heard of patient bees, before? Or the way those insects acted around those flowers? Something about his sudden tension made her think twice.

He turned slowly back to his coffee. “Could have been anything. Could have been something…dangerous. And you would have been out there by yourself. Don’t need you getting hurt and your school coming after me. Don’t go out that far again.”

Her brows knitted a little and there was a strange little pang of disappointment. His words made complete sense, of course. It was a long way out there and she had no business going out so far by herself. If something had happened, she would have been completely alone. It was just common sense, really. But still he seemed a little…terse, about the subject, and she could not help but wonder why. But it was not her farm, and not her place to wonder such things. So she just nodded, and went to sip at the last of her coffee, instead.

“Okay.”

“Finish your dinner and I’ll show you how to repair the holes in the mesh before tomorrow. You’ve had enough stings for today.”

She looked down at where her legs were still a little swollen and bore red welts. Going into that field, near those sunflowers, had been a really bad idea. Her leg poor legs were proof of that. Although, something had kept them from stinging her even more. And she couldn’t help but wonder what.

* * *

 

She was left wondering for nearly a week before Mr. Rutledge needed to leave the farm again, for more feed and some medicine for a goat with a cough. Mei stood out on the front porch, waving to him as the old rattling truck turned the last bend in the road and went out of sight. And after a few more moments, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back or forgetting anything, she bolted back into the house. Clattering up the stairs, she paused only to grab her backpack; shoving her notebooks, entomologist case, her pencils, and a lunchbox into it, pulling it across her shoulders before pushing open the back screen door and running out.

This time, she made sure she was wearing pants. And she’d double-checked that Winifred was still in her pen and wouldn’t lead her into danger again. Her poor legs still bore enough band-aids from her first stings, and she did not intend to repeat her mistake.

The summer cicadas were drowning the world with their song, a constant rattling drone to accompany a hot, muggy, yellow afternoon. They had made it hard to sleep at first, but she had learned to ignore them. And their singing covered the sound of her feet as she dashed across the farm, passing by the uninterested goats and chickens, and swerving on her path to give the active beehives a wide berth. Across the pasture she went; through the fields, into the corn, out the other side, and down the dirt roads past the soy beans, until she came to the same field of sweetgrass and the sunflowers beyond it.

Out in the rows of sunflowers, she saw the ragged old scarecrow, hanging up and out above the sea of yellow. It was a little too far away to get a very good look at it, but it looked a little…off, somehow. Most of the scarecrows she had seen were little more than old clothes and burlap sacks with a smiley-face drawn on them, only vaguely resembling a human, just enough to scare the birds. This one looked almost like a human that had been strung up and left to hang on a pole, even slumping with its head down. What an odd choice for someone to make…

There were fewer bees than there had been earlier that week. It seemed that they had exhausted the blooms there, and only a few latecomers were buzzing amongst the little field, poking themselves into stray flowers to see if there was anything left. Mei decided to give them space, traveling around the very edge of the field and cutting a cautious path until she could head to the shade from the tree in the little clearing in the center. This spot seemed devoid of any angry stingers, and gave her a good view of the sunflowers.

Hesitantly, she pulled off her pack and opened it up, pulling out a blanket and spreading it amongst the grass. Tossing her lunchbox and her other supplies onto it not long after, she sat down and opened it up, pulling out her sandwich and her cucumber salad and settling down for a nice late lunch. The vegetables from Mr. Rutledge’s gardens and the local farmers’ markets were second to none, and she intended to enjoy the fresh produce while she could.

She paused mid-chew when she thought she heard something crackling amongst the flowers. But when she stopped and listened, there was nothing amiss, and there wasn’t that prickling feeling of menace that she had felt before. And the remaining bees were still going about their important business and ignoring her. The flowers rustled again. Probably just the breeze.

For a while she just sat there on her blanket amongst the field of sweetgrass, with the sun on her face and listening to the cicadas and birds serenading her meal. It was little moments like these that made all the hard work worth it, really; fresh air, fresh food, fresh honey, everything out here made her stop and appreciate the little things. Maybe once she finished her degree on agriculture, she’d buy a farm just like this one… But she had work to do, first.

Her first task was to just get a few samples and head back to properly preserve them. She needed a few cuttings from the flowers, and some live insects to monitor. Maybe she could send one of these clearly bio-engineered blooms to someone in her department and find out what this was all about? Maybe Mr. Rutledge used some kind of pesticide that was causing errant behavior? Perhaps it wasn’t just pollenators like the bees that were affected, but other insects too? Or perhaps there was some sort of divergent species from these very old hives with undocumented behavior patterns? Her professors were bound to impressed, if so!

Wiping away the remnants of her salad and brushing the crumbs away from her lap, she stood. She pulled out a few jars and a pair of tweezers, adjusting her glasses before approaching the wall of sunflower stalks. The bees had behaved so oddly, specifically around these flowers, and she had not been able to stop wondering why. Perhaps there were other insects here that she could study, and see if their behaviors were similarly abnormal? She wasn’t an expert in entomology per se, but she could at least get some spceimens for those who were.

Approaching the sunflowers, she leaned towards the rows of stalks and began picking at the leaves; turning them upside down, pulling them away from the main plant, checking every nook and crevice on them. No sign of insect activity at all, not even a stray aphid. There was nothing to take samples from. Leaning down towards the dirt, she checked for anything crawling there. Again, nothing. Not a single bug to be found.

Her brows knitted, squinting in a baffled sort of way behind her glasses. Things were becomings stranger and stranger, it seemed. But, just to be sure, she reached up, standing on her tippy-toes, and pulling down one of the sunflower stalks until it bent down to her level. The porous brown florets at the center, filled with seeds, had nothing crawling on it. The cheerful yellow petals didn’t have a single ant hiding In them. Nothing. Everything was so normal, it was completely abnormal, yet again.

Well, that was…strange. She’d have to write that down. Maybe she’d just take a few seed samples, instead, and she could—

But once she tried to pull too hard on that sunflower, the noises started again: like she had pulled on the thread of a spider’s web, and something had felt it from deeper in. There came another rustle from amongst the stalks, something clattering deep amongst the greenery just like before. Her eyes darted quickly, and she released the flower to let it spring back up, the movement causing a little ripple through the rest of the sunflower field. Whatever was moving around in there, stopped. Was it that ‘animal’ again? Or something else?

“Hello? Hello, is anybody there?” she asked aloud, tilting her head and putting her hands on her knees to peer into the inscrutable mass of stems and leaves.

No answer.

“Mr. Rutledge?” she tried, even though she knew it wasn’t him. “Or… Winifred! Is that you, girl? Did you get out again? Are you being a very bad pig?”

If it was Winifred, she was being strangely quiet and sneaky. Or maybe it was some wild animal, just like Mr. Rutledge had warned her about, one of the reasons she shouldn’t have been out here. That thought made her a little nervous. Of course, she didn’t think there was anything particularly dangerous around the area…no bears or cougars or wolves or such things. But even if it was ‘just’ a nasty feral dog, she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything with claws or teeth. She’d rather face the bees, any day.

That feeling was back. She needed to leave. But she didn’t want to leave without her samples.

She reached out with both hands, grasping onto one of the stalks, and started pulling. Just one flower. If she could only take one weird, giant, insect-impervious, possibly magical flower, this might be the start of something big…Although, oof, that might be harder than first thought. She twisted and pulled, trying to wrench off one of the giant blooms, but it wasn’t making it easy. No matter how she tugged and turned, it didn’t want to come off. She even dug her fingernails into it, trying to sever some of the fibers, clawing until green chlorophyll started leaking down her fingers, and it started to give way, just enough to-

_“HHhhrrhh!”_

There was a horrible noise, something she’d never heard before.

Again, the presence moved amongst the sunflowers, the blooms and leaves rattling noisily as it suddenly headed straight for her. Eyes widening, she dug into the dirt and pulled back with her entire body weight, one last ditch effort to pull up the flower before she could turn to run, just one bloom. She felt it start to give way, but then she saw the stalks parting in front of her, and then two of the sunflower blooms turned towards her…only they weren’t flowers, but glowing yellow circles, like eyes. She started to scream, and then the flower came loose in her hands just as the animal or person or monster or whatever it was, leapt towards her.

* * *

 

She must have hit the ground, because that was where she woke up. Maybe her feet had gone out from under her when she’d pulled the bloom loose, and she had hit her head? That might have made sense…if she hadn’t been laying on her picnic blanket, yards away from where the sunflowers were. But there she was, with the cicadas still churring away, and the birds were still singing and the sun was still shining, and for a moment she wondered if she had fallen asleep during her lunch and dreamed of everything that came after. But the tips of fingers tingled, and when she looked, there was still green under her fingernails. And laying on the blanket next to her, was the severed bloom…or was it? The sunflower she had picked earlier was now a withered and black lump of desiccated rot, and ants were starting to swarm around it, and on her.

“Uuuhgh!” With a shriek, she bolted to her feet and began brushing urgently at her legs, sending them scattering. A little kick sent the rotten flower flying, and she went about fluffing the blanket to fling off the remainder of the ants. Disgusting! What on earth?!

Even as she struggled with the remnants of her picnic, her eyes were drawn back to the field, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise upward. She felt like she was being watched again, but it felt stronger this time, and closer. Maybe it had something to do with those eyes she had seen before…or had she actually seen anything at all, and was just spooking herself with her own imagination? She’d never had much in the ways of a very wild imagination, but maybe being out here alone was messing with her more than she’d thought?

“Is there someone out there? If there’s someone there, it’s not funny anymore!” She peered around her, vision still wavering a little. “Hello? Is this someone else’s land? If so…I’m really sorry! I’m from the next farm over and I didn’t mean any harm. Really, is someone there?”

The wind rustled the flowers again, but that was her only response.

So much for getting one of the blooms. How had that one rotted so fast, anyway? Should she try again…?

Something deep in her gut told her that was a bad idea.

She rubbed at her temples, and realized her glasses were missing. It wasn’t just her alarm causing the blurriness around her. With a little curse, she returned to her blanket and started searching. Her vision wasn’t the best without them, and everything was a little fuzzy as she reached out with both hands, patting around to see if she could feel them. There was no sign of them, and though she walked around the sweetgrass field and even searched by the flowers as close as she dared, she couldn’t find them. Great. She had no insect samples, no flowers, and she’d scared herself into losing her glasses. More money down the drain. And for the rest of the summer she’d have to rely on her broken back-up pair back at the farm, with the tape on the nose.

In a very foul mood now, especially as she brushed away a few stray ants that had clung to her pants, she began folding up her blanket and gathering up the remnants of her ill-fated picnic. The sun was starting to get a bit low in the sky, and she had to make it back before Mr. Rutledge returned to the farm. He’d been right about this place. Whatever these weird sunflowers were- She glanced up at them, and then recoiled slightly when she noticed something.

Even without her glasses, she noticed it. The scarecrow from earlier was gone, missing from his perch where he had been hanging out in the middle of the patch. Had it fallen down or…been moved somewhere else? No, that would be a silly thought. She was just scaring herself again, that was all. That weirdly human-proportioned scarecrow was just suddenly gone from its perch and that had nothing to do with the weird noises and movements she had heard, and how she’d been conked out and moved without her knowledge, and-

That bad feeling was back, and getting stronger now. Her neck hair was prickling and she wrapped both arms around herself, brows knitting as she backed away.

“I-I’m…I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m going to go now, okay?”

She looked back to the sunflower patch one last time, squinting to where the green stalks grew so thick they were almost black. And somewhere in the darkness there, she thought she saw a faint yellow light turn towards her. Her blood went cold, and she leaned to grab her backpack, zipping it shut before she turned and outright ran, hopping over the rotten black sunflower bloom as she waded into the field of soybeans and fled back towards the safety of the farm.

He watched her go.

* * *

 

She spent an uneasy night filled with bad dreams that she couldn’t really remember. She had dreamed of a buzzing in both her ears and light burning her eyelids, but those were easily explained away. The hum of the fan must have become the hum of phantom insects, and the light was the dawn promising another hot day. The prickling she’d felt over her body? Probably the fading itch from the bee stings. And the fingers she’d felt on her clammy forehead? Those were from… Well, dreams were just strange things, sometimes.

Pulling her sweating body from beneath the covers, she dragged herself into the bathroom, thrusting her tape-glasses askew onto her face. There was a little mark of dirt on her cheek. Had she missed it when she’d washed her face last night? She really had been out of sorts. Scrubbing it away, she rinsed out her mouth and spat into the aged porcelain, dragging on her clothes.

With the sun barely peeking over the treeline, she joined Mr. Rutledge at the breakfast table, pouring more honey than usual into her oatmeal. For once, she didn’t even try to make conversation with the man as he read his morning news, and her uncharacteristic silence actually seemed to unnerve the man a little. She just sat there, with nothing but the occasional clink of her spoon in her bowl, until he finally looked up at her with a low rumble.

“You feeling all right?”

“Hm?” She answered dully, gaze still far off behind her spare taped-together lenses. “Oh. No, I’m fine. Just a long night, couldn’t sleep.”

He turned the page in his newspaper. “Can you work?”

“I’m fine. Honestly.”

“Mm. Take it easy today. Finish your breakfast. Then you go inspect the hives while I feed the chickens and see to the pigs. Still don’t know how Winifred keeps getting out…”

She nodded with a little yawn, and went to dump her bowl into the sink for later. Plodding out towards the backroom, she began suiting up, pulling on the thick white armor and stitched mesh hat that would protect her from their stings. Yawning and stretching again as she gathered up her smoke canisters and clipboard, she opened the back door…and paused abruptly, mid-step.

There, on the little cracked concrete square at the bottom of the wooden steps, were her lost glasses. The big round wireframes were still intact, and the lenses caught the morning light and practically glowed where they had been sat conspicuously in the center of the square…surrounded by a circle of scattered, bright yellow petals.

Her heart seized and then started trying to come up out of her throat, and she had to swallow hard to keep it down. “Keep calm, Mei, keep calm…it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine…” Very, very cautiously, she approached the circle. Nothing about the glasses seemed amiss, and when she brought one thick gloved hand to poke at them (just to see if they were really there), nothing happened. Completely dumbfounded, she stood staring down at them, coughing a little before lifting her voice.

“Mr. Rutledge!”

He called back from inside. “Yeah?”

“Did you find my glasses?”

A pause before he answered, a bit puzzled. “Your glasses? Aren’t you wearing them?”

“Ah…I think I must have dropped my other pair! I found them though, thanks!” With her eyes darting to and fro, she quickly went to sweep the concrete clean with her foot, scattering and scraping the petals into the grass and under the stairs. Again, she saw nothing strange, just the sights and sounds of the farm starting to wake up like it did every morning. The insects and birds were still singing, the tangled windchimes hanging on the sagging porch jangled, and further away, a goat bleated for its breakfast.

“Mei? Everything all right?” Mr. Rutledge called again. He must have heard her pause.

“Um. Yes! Sorry, just getting everything together!”

Carefully taking her newly-returned glasses and setting them just inside, she gathered up her canisters and notes again, her mind whirring as she trudged on towards the beehives. The insects buzzed around her, clinging to her netting and crawling around her suit as she began pumping in the smoke that would calm them. She just needed to check on their progress and take notes, which gave her time to ponder.

Maybe this went a little deeper than strangely-behaving bees and a field of odd flowers. And maybe she hadn’t just imagined that missing scarecrow from earlier. Twice now, she’d lost her nerve and been sent fleeing…only this time, it had followed her home. To offer her her missing glasses back? Did that mean it was friendly? Then again, hadn’t it attacked her? Or had it only moved her? Had she really seen it at all? Or…

So many questions. So many strange, strange questions. Though, as a scholar, she was used to having questions. That was one of the reasons she was here on this farm, after all, was doing her research and asking questions. Well, now she had more questions.

And just like a good student would, she intended to find the answers.


	2. Chapter 2

She checked to make sure she had everything she needed…or well, she had absolutely no idea what she needed for something like this. But she had scraped together a tiny semblance of a plan, and prepared thusly. Shoved into her bag, she had her sample-taking gear, her phone, a secondary camera, and knife that she told herself was only for cutting plant samples but really was just to make her feel better, and food.  
  
But not food for herself. Whatever unearthly thing was happening in those fields, she still wondered if it might just be some wandering animal, or some entity like one. And if not an animal, maybe food would still work. Across all cultures, there was no better introduction and signal for peace than the offering of food. She’d spent the entire last night wondering what food a haunted scarecrow (if that’s what it was) might like, and eventually just settled that was just nothing that she could compare to this sort of thing, and decided to bring an array. Of the veritable buffet of dumplings, salads, waffles, puddings, fruits, and even some fried chicken from the frozen foods section since she never ate meat herself…maybe something would catch its eye. If it had eyes. Were those yellow lights its eyes? She really couldn’t be sure about any of it.  
  
Of course, that’s what she was here to find out. She’d had to wait until Mr. Rutledge left the farm alone again, this time to procure new parts for the tractor. For some reason, he had asked her what she’d planned on doing while he was gone. And she wasn’t a liar, so she said she would be studying. Just…studying the haunted sunflower field, instead of the bees, that was all. But he hadn’t asked her that part, so that was as much as she had said. Was that technically a lie by omission? She hoped not.  
  
Trudging over the pumpkin fields, through the soy, into the corn and out the other side, she was back in the sweetgrass and facing the forest of giant sunflowers once more. Shielding her eyes from the bright summer sun, the perspiration clinging to her body even more thick and cloying than the cicadas’ droning song, she ignored the tickle of the tall grass tickling her bare thighs up by her shorts, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiping at her face. How could anyone ever get used to heat like this? She wished she had a cold glass of cola…and then also wondered if haunted scarecrows might like a cola as well. Maybe it was exhausting for it too, hanging on a pole in the sun all day.  
  
In fact, it was out there already, slumped on its wooden pole where it had been before. Okay, good…Or was it bad? Time to find out.  
  
With a careful motion so as not to break anything, she dropped her pack onto the ground and pulled out her picnic blanket, the same as before, and started laying out all the plates of food and treats. They almost filled the whole space, only leaving a tiny square where she could sit if she pulled her legs all the way up. But it was a very tempting spread, if she did say so herself. Now all she had to do was see if she could get her hopeful guest’s attention.  
  
Clearing her throat, she lifted her voice. “Um…Thank you! For bringing my glasses back!”  
  
She listened for any crackling or swaying in the field, but heard nothing. It was a very still day, and there wasn’t even a breeze to rustle the flowers or bring any form of cool relief. Nothing seemed to be moving inside them so far. So she tried again.  
  
“I’ve never really done this before, so I’m sorry if I’m a little awkward,” she went on, talking in the general direction of the field. “But I’m not here to hurt you or bother you or anything, I promise. I made some food for you, though, if you want any. I mean, I don’t know what you eat, or if you eat…Um…or if you’re even out there? Am I even talking to anyone?”  
  
There was no response, and she frowned a bit, unhooking her arms from around her knees and standing. Shielding her eyes again, she had to lift up on her very tip-toes, and even then, do a little hop to have a little peek over the swaying sea of yellow blooms. But it told her what she needed to know. The scarecrow was no longer out on its pole.  
  
Goosebumps prickled on her skin, unable to suppress a shudder as she returned to her little spot on the blanket. “I think you’re listening, right now. I think. Maybe you can’t talk? If not, that’s okay. Are you shy? Maybe you don’t want me to see you?”  
  
She heard something. A leaf or a stalk crackling like something was passing through it. Somewhere on the left side. Her hand tightened around her phone, the camera on.  
  
“Are you a scarecrow? Or are you just dressed like one?”  
  
Still nothing. It was watching her but not answering her. That was a bit frustrating, especially with all the food set out just for it. It had taken her hours to make those dumplings. Pursing her lips a little, she reached for her chopsticks and took up one of the dumplings, holding it up and waving it to and fro for whatever audience she had, before putting it into her mouth. Chewing and swallowing, she looked back to the flowers. “See? They’re really good! These are called jiaozi, back where I’m from. And these, these are waffles! They are…not where I’m from, but still pretty good! See? Mmm!” She held up a waffle and then smeared honey on it, taking a bite.  
  
She felt more than a little silly, going through her food and explaining which one was, like to a child. She hoped she wasn’t insulting it, but there was still just…no…answer. With no interest in her picnic, she ate her fill, drooping a little more with every delicious bite. Apparently, she was the only one attending.  
  
She made one last little effort, holding up the last tin. “Maybe you like meat? I have some chicken?”  
  
Nothing.  
  
This had been a foolish venture after all. She waited around for a while longer, occasionally peering through the camera on her phone, but she needed to get back before Mr. Rutledge. She lifted up, dusting crumbs from her shorts. Maybe it was just too shy to come out, or wasn’t interested in the food. She decided to leave it behind, just in case. Wandering back and forth between her blanket and the edge of the sunflowers, she began setting up food all along the rim; dumplings and cupcakes and candy and honey on waffles and everything else. If the entity didn’t want it, maybe the ants would.  
  
Folding up her blanket, she shoved the empty containers and everything else back into her bag when she heard what she thought might have been a rustling amongst the stalks. Brightening a little, she bustled over and peered into the green and black, hands on her knees. “Hello?”  
  
She saw nothing, but instead heard what might have been the distant rumble of a puttering old truck on the dirt road. She needed to go.  
  
“Okay well…Maybe next time you’ll come out and say hi? Or not, that’s okay. Sorry if I bothered you,” she said, and offered a little bow to the sunflowers.  
  
With that, she turned and dashed through the sweetgrass and into the corn, headed back to the farm once more.

* * *

  
  
A fly circled around the pile of fried chicken, but then stiffened suddenly, turning abruptly in another direction and flying away.  
  
A hand, clad in a rough brown work glove that was starting to crack with age, reached out from between the stalks of the sunflower field. It picked up two twigs awkwardly, and then reached out with them, trying to pick up the jiaozi dumplings the way she had. The makeshift chopsticks did not work very well, and the slick dumplings fell out of their grasp, every time.  
  
“Jiaozi…” a warped voice echoed, with a slight buzz on the end. “Jiaozi…waffles…chicken…”  
  
He gave up, letting the twigs drop and simply picking them up between gnarled fingers. One by one, the offerings were dragged into the green.  
  
The cicadas kept singing and took no notice.

* * *

  
  
“How is your research going?” Mr. Rutledge asked rather abruptly at dinner.  
  
She blinked at him behind her glasses, her mouth unfortunately full of tofu fried rice. “Mmmh?”  
  
“Your research. For school.”  
  
“Oh! Very well, thank you. I’ve been keeping track of your hive’s movements, where each hive tends to congregate, and what flower. That’s why we were trimming the rhododenron bushes down by the river, weren’t we? So the bees wouldn’t pollinate them and make poison honey.”  
  
“…Smart girl,” he rumbled, taking another mouthful of the dinner she’d made for them. “Bad honey is bad business…”  
  
“Um…I did notice something? I was looking over your product lists and how the honey changes from year to year, according to what flowers are growing and where. You’ve listed lavender honey, clover honey, yarrow honey, blueberry honey, and so on. Can you taste the difference in the honey that much, with what flowers they used?”  
  
He held up one thick finger before rising out of his creaking chair, disappearing into the kitchen. He returned with a little stack of jars in one hand, and a bag of crackers in the other. Wordlessly, he set them in front of her.  
  
She pushed her dinner aside to look at them. Well…You could say a lot of things about Mr. Rutledge, but ‘good graphic designer’ was not one of them. It looked like he had made some attempt at official labeling, even though she’d never seen a computer around here. In all caps and rather off-center was RUTLEDGE FARMS BLEUBERRY HONEY, above a clipart of a raspberry, since maybe he couldn’t find a blueberry one.  
  
She unscrewed the lid and poured a thick wad onto a cracker before sampling. Holding it atop her tongue, she could taste the very faint sweetness, below the more obvious sweetness of the honey. A refreshing note of blueberry that held on after the honey had faded. Mr. Rutledge grunted and held it up to the light, and pointed to the faint purplish tint that she hadn’t noticed before.  
  
“Oh! That’s…actually a little surprising! I didn’t know you had so many different kinds besides regular honey. What’s your favorite, Mr. Rutledge?”  
  
He seemed to hesitate at the question, perhaps not used to socializing over his meals, but he reached for another jar and slid it in front of her. This one didn’t have a label, just the date from two years back. “Multi-floral…Good crop of carrots that year. Carrot flower, with heather and oak.”  
  
She sampled. It was the polar opposite of the blueberry. Less acidic and sweet, this was deep and earthy, with an almost caramel tinge and lingering bitterness after. He’d said it was multi-floral, with layers of flavor over one another where the flower pollens had been mixed and cultivated by the hard-working bees. It really was interesting, how each ‘crop’ of honey could taste so different, according to what plants they had visited. This would be great research to add to her dissertation on honey production and agriculture. Of course…during her research, she had noticed one strange discrepancy, that one flower was missing on the list.  
  
“Do you have a sunflower honey I could try? I bet that would be good!” she said.  
  
He paused for too long, before uttering a low, “…No.”  
  
“Really? But you have that huge field of them not too far away. I bet the bees would-”  
  
“No.”  
  
He swept the table clear of the jars and different honeys, heading back into the pantry. And maybe it was Mei’s imagination, but he seemed a little angry as he did so, even if she couldn’t say why. She expected him to come back to the table and finish the rest of his tofu, but he didn’t return at all. In fact, she heard the screen door swing open a few minutes later, and then heavy footsteps on the porch as he headed off into the night, soon drowned out by the shriek of the crickets.  
  
Mei was left to finish her dinner and clean up in lonely silence, sponging off the dishes and wondering about the sunflowers.

 

* * *

  
  
Her sweaty body had kicked the sheets off hours ago. Even the old box fan, humming steadily on the dresser nearby, couldn’t keep her cool. She kept waking up at random intervals, eyes flying open and searching above her for something that must have spooked her in a dream she’d promptly forgotten, only for her drooping eyelids to close again just as quickly. Several times she thought she heard thumping around upstairs, a rustling, and even something moving around her room. But her eyelids remain clamped shut because she was so tired and she knew she was just dreaming again. Something whispered to her, and she moaned a little. When she did manage to crack them apart, she saw two yellow lights gleaming in the dark. But she was without her glasses and was probably just seeing doubles of her night-light…even though, wasn’t that light on the other side of her room? Dreams were strange things, to be sure.  
  
Something shook her out of her sleep yet again…a soft _tap-tap-tap-tap_ sound. It sounded like something was hitting the glass of her window…which was now open, the curtains fluttering softly around it. Dragging on her glasses, she rubbed at her eyes and squinted at it. The tapping had stopped. The light filtering in was still gray, not quite dawn. A glance at the clock confirmed that it wasn’t even six yet.  
  
Untangling herself from her bed, she drifted over to see what had been making the taps. Was someone throwing rocks at her window? She didn’t see anyone, although it was a little hard to see with the dim light. Actually, she thought she could see something laid out on the lawn outside…?  
  
Oh no…  
  
Snatching her bathrobe and halfway shoving it on as she opened the door and practically tumbled down the stairs, she made a mad dash for the back porch door, the same place where her glasses had shown up. Catching the screen before it could slam shut, she rushed past all the beekeeping equipment and paused outside, her robe still askew on one arm and looking more than a little disheveled as she looked down at the bottom of the steps.  
  
A tarp was laid out like a blanket, scattered with yellow petals yet again. And this time there was an array of other things with it. On a rusted hubcap plate, was a selection of wet, balled up newspapers that resembled jiaozi, with two twigs for chopsticks. As she wandered a little closer, she could recognize other things; a dried slab of mud with dents that looked like a waffle, a pile of vegetables and fruits, the top half of a turnip stuck into a cup like a cupcake, a still-oozing slab of honeycomb wriggling with bee larvae, several eggs, a tin can full of sludge she couldn't identify, a still-unhusked cob of corn covered in yellow fluid, and a shoebox.  
  
A picnic…  
  
She froze for a moment, staring down at the assortment of ‘treats’ laid out for her, before curiosity reared its ugly head again. Creeping forward across grass still soaked with dew, she went to open the shoebox. With a scream, she slammed it shut again. She’d gotten just a glimpse of it, a mess of brown and red feathers with two scaly yellow feet stuck up, its head bent at an impossible angle and soaked with blood. One of Mr. Rutledge’s chickens, the brown speckled one she thought might have been named Penny.  
  
Stranger yet were the flies, surrounding the picnic and buzzing and hovering in mid-air and unmoving, like they wished to attend but were forced to wait patiently for their turn. Flies weren’t supposed to have manners. Flies weren’t supposed to wait for her to finish eating before they intruded on her picnic. Just like the bees before…something was making them…  
  
She looked around just like before, but saw nothing. It was still too early for the animals to really start stirring, too early even for the cicadas. There was nothing but the pre-dawn hush and some bird who hadn’t gotten the memo, chirping far away. Dragging her hands down her face, she slapped her cheeks a bit and urged herself to move. She had to get rid of this, had to hide it all before Mr. Rutledge got up. And he was an early riser, and that left her precious little time.  
  
She took a pair of work gloves and a shovel from the work shed. Still half clad in her robe and skimpy summer pajamas, she dragged the tarp and all its treats across the grass, back behind the barn where they stored the hay. There she got to work, sweat rolling down her temples as she dug, the shovel sinking into the soil with a muffled thud again and again. Everything; the tarp, the food, the box with poor Penny inside, everything was shoved into the hole as hastily as she could, starting to fling the disturbed dirt atop it. Just to be sure, she grabbed handfuls of hay and flung it atop the pile to hide it more.  
  
Still looking around, eyes wide and a little frightened, she pulled her robe shut and hurried back to the house. Vanishing inside, she ran for the bathroom and pulled the curtains shut. Soon there was the hiss of the shower, even hotter than the hot weather, hoping to scald and awash away the stench of her sweat and fear.

* * *

  
  
Had he forgotten something important? He wasn’t sure. How disappointing, to gather everything up just as she liked, only to have her bury it like a dog. Even the flies couldn’t get at it now, even after waiting for her.  
  
What a strange thing for someone to do?  
  
He liked to watch her from far away, usually. But watching her thrash and moan in her sleep was nice too. Even then, he’d been so excited for her to wake up to what he had planned for her. And instead she had take it all away and buried it. Was this just something she did? Like the way she talked to the animals or would stop and daydream at random or how she would eat with sticks?  
  
He would need to try again. Something even better. Just for her.

* * *

  
  
She didn’t come down to breakfast that morning, saying she was feeling sick. Mr. Rutledge did not seem impressed, and went on his morning chores alone. Even though she felt a little pang of guilt for it, she stayed sequestered in her room, with the curtains drawn and duct tape on the windows, closed now despite the already-stifling morning heat.  
  
It was several hours later before she finally came downstairs, her hair drawn into a bun and still looking a tad gray in the face, but she said she felt well enough to work.  
  
Mr. Rutledge shrugged one massive shoulder. “Mm. Go get started with the hives, then help me with the back garden.”  
  
“O-okay.”  
  
“One of the chickens escaped. Red one. Penny. You seen her?”  
  
She thought of the shoebox filled with blood and feathers, rotting in the pit covered with hay behind the barn. Sweat beaded on her temples, but she shook her head and she lied.  
  
“N-no. Sorry…?”  
  
He grumbled something and lumbered off.  
  
Mei watched him go, still shaken. Maybe this was getting just a little out of hand. It was clearly trying to communicate, but something had gotten misunderstood along the way. Now it had left her a rather gruesome present, like a cat presenting a dead rat at the door, and Mr. Rutledge had lost one of his prized layer hens. It had offered her a chicken, just like she had given it chicken before, along with everything else. Maybe it was just trying to understand her or thank her? Maybe she…needed to be more careful with this, than she first thought?  
  
She began the laborious process of putting on her beekeeper gear, just like every morning, to go tend to the hives. More time to think. She just needed to think.

* * *

  
  
He watched her.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a strange dream. It hummed in her head and made everything hurt a little, just several frequencies too low and throbbing inside her skull. She was up higher than she should have been, taller than she should have been for some reason. Below her was a shifting, shapeless mass of sunflowers; streaks and smears of green and yellow color that stretched out until they were the horizon. That was where they met the blue of the sky, and shining down upon her was the yellow orb of the sun. It was hot, that sun. It was so hot and she bowed her head against it, but when she looked down, the yellow flowers were all suns too, and they burned as well. The humming got louder and louder and it got hotter and hotter and hotter until she couldn’t stand any more and then-

She woke up just like last time, clammy with nightmare perspiration and limbs clutched together and tangled. Mei had not been sleeping well, the past few nights. It was simply too warm and humid for someone like her, steaming moisture draping over like a blanket that she couldn’t take off. She would wake up covered in dew and sweat, her sheets kicked off around her and her long-abandoned quilt pooled on the floor.

The morning sun streaming in her window promised yet another hot and steamy day, and the screaming of the cicadas starting their songs with the sunrise must have invaded her dreams. Strange, though, that she’d been having that same dream for the past four days. No doubt that it was from her preoccupation with the otherworldly presence that still lingered out in those fields. Her attempts to make contact with it had not gone as planned, and guilt over the incident still bothered her greatly. The unfortunate chicken rotting in that tarp in the hole in that ground was proof of that.

Mr. Rutledge seemed to have written off the missing hen easily enough, at least. Sometimes on farms, animals simply wandered off or died. He remained as inscrutable as ever, and his gruff mannerisms made it hard to tell if he was irked at her or if he was just his usual solemn self. She had no idea if he even suspected her at all, but did not dare bring it up again. She’d already had to lie to him once, and if cornered on the matter she had no idea how she was going to explain that she had accidentally instigated a magical scarecrow murder on poor innocent Penny.

A little more caution was in order when it came to communicating with this thing. The plan with the food offerings hadn’t panned out, so she needed to come up with something different. She was fairly sure that written language of any sort wouldn’t work either, but perhaps pictures would. A drawing pad and a slightly sub-par set of art skills would work there, but first she needed to coax it out of hiding. From there, maybe she could learn if it had a name, or where it was from, or what it was at all? Maybe she could even record herself communicating with this entity and deliver its existence to the rest of the world. The world of academia would certainly be more interested in that than her summer of agricultural study, she bet.

But first she had to find it. It seemed to have a mutual interest in her, at least, even if was still hiding for some reason. It had delivered her glasses and made her its own sickening form of a picnic, but she hadn’t seen evidence of it since. Maybe it was waiting for her, since it had delivered her its last gift and now it was her ‘turn’, so to speak. For all she knew, it was out there hanging on its pole and waiting for her even now.

The problem being that Mr. Rutledge was keeping her busier than ever, and she had a suspicion that he was doing it on purpose. And he seemed to be keeping an eye on her, as well. He happened to wander by at odd moments or could be seen far away watching her, checking on her whereabouts, and kept her close to the house and the hives with an unending amount of chores. And with her grades riding on the man’s whims, she did not dare challenge it.

But she could outsmart it.

Earlier in the week, she’d offered to start cooking more. She claimed to be missing some of the dishes from her home, and said she had wanted to introduce Mr. Rutledge to some of her Xi’an cuisine. Every night had seen her slaving in the kitchen, and true to her word she had come out with dishes that stunned the older man. Mr. Rutledge had become quickly addicted to her stir-fry vegetables, her spiced stews, handmade noodles, and especially her bao. The man could devour stacks of bao like nothing she had ever seen. It had endeared her to him…and it also helped to quickly empty the pantry at top speed.

The grocery run came far quicker than before. And this time, she had given him a list and the directions to an Asian market a few towns away. He had been reluctant at first, but when she showed him the empty spice containers and mournfully went on that she just couldn’t make his favorite bao without them, he had relented even more quickly than she had expected.

She guided him out to his crusty pick-up truck, which heaved and squeaked as it pitched to one side when he hauled his enormous weight into the cab.

“Doubanjiang sauce… black bean paste, right? And what is this?” He gave his list a mystified glance over, holding it delicately between two huge fingers.

“Don’t worry, I’ve written everything down. Just show it to anyone working there, and if they can read English or Hanzi they can help you find it,” she assured him. “My next dish is going to be mapo tofu, I just know you’re going to love it. With dessert bao, you haven’t tried the dessert kind yet! I can even make different flavors to see what you like, and it will be so good with honey. I’m sorry for all the ingredients, but between the Asian market and the regular store you should be able to get it all without much fuss.”

“Mm…” He frowned and tucked the list into a pocket, turning to her. “While I’m gone, you’ll need to care of a few things. You need to do a varroa monitor check on the hives, fresh water change, and make sure hive six has stopped robbing hive two, the buggers. And since I’ll be gone for a bit, you need to feed the goats and pigs, and-”

“I remember, don’t worry. I’ll make sure everything is done, it’ll only be a few hours at most. Bye, Mr. Rutledge!”

“Mmm…” he uttered another low rumble, but shut the door with a rattling slam as the truck started up and began clattering off down the dirt roads, towards the distant main highways.

Mei waved as casually as she could, already heading back into the house as if to start the list of chores…although she’d not told Mr. Rutledge that she had already guessed what he would want her to do to keep her busy, and had done those chores much earlier in the day when she’d concocted this little scheme to get him out of the house. It had run her ragged most of the morning, in between her usual to-do list, but now she was free.

Once more she put together her little supply bag; with her pencils and crayons and notebook, her phone with the camera and recording programs all ready to go, and a sharp kitchen knife…just for sample-taking, of course. The last thing to do was feed the goats and pigs. She paused only to hastily dump buckets of leftovers and slop into their respective pens, leaving the bleating and happy squealing of the animals behind her quickly as she took out across the farm once again. That would tide the beasts over while she did her other set of chores, the far more important ones.

Passing by the hives and gardens, her boots kicked up little puffs of dust as she walked. It hadn’t rained in quite a while, and she could see how the leaves on the plants had begun to yellow and brown, shriveling on the edges and withering away from the harsh sunlight. The gardens had been surviving by them dragging can after can of water to keep the ground moist, but out here, the crops had been suffering. Mr. Rutledge’s farm was too small and sprinkler systems were too expensive (and likely the man was simply too stubborn) so the plants were left to the mercy of nature.

But even Mr. Rutledge had turned his head to the sky a few times and hoped aloud for rain. Thus far, summer had been long and hot and dry, and showed no signs of stopping. She crashed through the rows of dust-covered pumpkins and shriveled corn leaves just as before, out into the field where even the sweetgrass was bowing and shying away from the unrelenting sunlight. That was the only constant around here this summer, was the sun and the scream of insects.

Well, those and…the sunflowers? Cautiously, she made her way through the dried grass, the soft hush-hush of the strands tickling the bare skin of her legs. As she tromped across the field, she could see that the sunflowers were as lush and green as ever. They stood tall in the muggy stillness, cheerful yellow petals open and welcoming the burning light. With a small hop, she could barely manage to see over the tops of the flowers and caught the briefest glimpse of the scarecrow, out on its pole like before. It was here.

She adjusted her glasses nervously before clearing her throat, lifting her voice. “Hello? Hello!”

Pausing after to listen, she heard nothing, so she bent her legs and performed another silly hop. The blip of color and cloth out in the middle of the flowers was gone now. The scarecrow was no longer on its pole.

Steeling herself, she couldn’t help but wring her hands a bit before stalwartly lowering them to her sides, fists still clenched with tension. Her voice cracked a little at first. “H-hello again. I’m sorry I can’t really greet you more properly, but I don’t know your name. Or if you have a name. But I got your um…your message? And I think you were trying to be friendly, right? Just like I was trying to be friendly.”

No answer.

“But you killed Penny, that chicken. And that’s not very friendly. I don’t want you to kill any more chickens, okay? Or anything else. We shouldn’t kill anything. I think it was just a misunderstanding, and I’m not mad. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but let’s not let it happen again. Okay?”

No answer.

She hoped she wasn’t insulting it somehow, speaking in such a manner. It sounded almost like she was scolding a naughty child…although this naughty child was some sort of supernatural force with a connection to this field and to the insects that she had not figured out, and there was no sign that it understood her at all, yet. Which brought her to her next experiment…

She set down her bag and rummaged through it before pulling out the drawing pad and materials. Holding it up towards the sunflower field and feeling a bit silly as she did so, she flashed a handful of crayons and pencils. “I thought we could try again, though. I’m not sure if you can speak or write, but maybe we can still understand each other! Do you know how to draw? Here, we make markings on the page, like this.”

Fumbling a bit awkwardly, she wedged the pad against her chest and plucked one of her crayons. Despite the odd angle, she managed to draw an almost-passable outline of a sunflower. For posterity, she even grabbed a yellow crayon and scribbled in the petals just in case. Holding it up, she slowly moved it from side to side, as if the whole field was her audience. “See? A flower! Maybe there’s something you want to show me through drawing, so I’m going to put this here…”

She gingerly stepped to the edge of the field, setting the crayons and paper down onto the grass. Quickly retreating back with a little skip, she hurried back a ‘safe’ distance away and waited. But just as before, nothing happened. The cicadas screamed and the sun burned, and that was all. Furrowing her brows, Mei eventually sighed and impatiently threw open her arms. “Can you at least tell me that you’re here? If you won’t talk, can you give me some kind of sign? Please, is anyone there at all!”

This time, there was a response. There was a sudden rattling clatter of leaves within the flowers, like something was moving through them like before; like a shark through water, swift and sharp and cutting through with ease. It wavered on its path, stalks and blossoms rattling as she watched wide-eyed, and then it came to an abrupt halt…in front of where the drawing pad was resting. It was too deep in for her to see anything, but it seemed reluctant to approach still. But…it was there. He was there.

Her eyes widened behind her glasses, taking a few steps back. And for each step away she took, whatever was in amongst the leaves got just a little bit closer, rustling softly. But when she tried taking a step towards it, it backed away. So she stepped back and lifted both hands in surrender.

“It’s okay if you’re shy, that’s okay. Do you want to draw? Maybe you want to draw, but you don’t want to come out?” She tilted her head and leaned to the side to see if she could see anything through the stalks, but found nothing. “Okay, I know! I’m going to walk away, and go around the corn field and then come back. You can just leave me a message if you want. Would that work?” She swept one arm towards said field, sidling away. “I’m going to go, and I’m not going to look back. I promise.”

And that was exactly what she did. Making a little show of turning about on her heel, she strode back the way she had come, through the dry grass and towards the rows of corn. She thought that she could hear rustling behind her, and some part of her desperately wished to turn her head, maybe to see if she could catch a glimpse of it. But she had promised, and other than a little dart of her eyes, she kept her head straight and forward as she passed out of view.

* * *

 

He came from between the flowers, watching her go. He thought perhaps that he would follow her, but his eyes were instead drawn to the things on the ground. She had left him the sketch pad and a pile of drawing things, just as she had said.

Bending his long limbs, he crouched amongst the grass, his gloved fingers plucking it up. Such a considerate girl. She had rolled it over to a fresh sheet of paper for him, but he fumbled for the edges of the page, trying not to rip it as he turned it up and over. Backwards, so he could look down at the flower she had drawn just for him, one of his sunflowers.

He looked at it for a while, hunched over and cradling it atop his bent knees as he turned his hand to run his knuckles slowly over the paper. Another sunflower, just for him. From a kind girl. A sweet girl.

Shifting one foot, there was a little clatter as it knocked into the pile of pencils and crayons. How strange they looked; bright and unnatural colors against the dying yellow-brown of the grass. Those blues were not like any blue thing out here, and there were other things like hot pink and chartreuse and cyan, and even the red seemed somehow too red. It was not red like a rose, or a cardinal, or even a nice ripe strawberry. There was only one thing he knew of that was nearly so red as that…and it was-…

…

He was starting to remember.

Cracked leather digits picked up one of the crayons, dragging it across the paper she had already drawn on. The wax left behind trails of color, and some far-off part of him delighted at the result. He flipped the page and continued, scribbling rapidly as he brought blues and blacks and other hues into play. Pictures formed on the pad, just for her. These ones, they were for her.

Not like…the other ones…?

More pictures More pictures for her. He stopped only when her footfalls fell on the dusty little path by the rows of corn. Glancing up, he dropped the crayons into a pile, and carefully set down the sketchpad. She would find them, and be so happy, and it made him happy that she would be happy.

He returned to the darkness beneath the sunflowers.

* * *

 

Mei’s eyes were immediately drawn to the place where she had left the sketchpad, and her heart gave a little fluttering leap in her chest. It had been moved from its spot. Wiping sweat from her forehead with one forearm, she bustled forward eagerly, practically running to see what had transpired during her little lap around the next fields. Snatching it up, she smoothed the page down and looked to see what it was trying to communicate…

Her brows furrowed.

It was the picture she had drawn of the sunflower. But the entity had added to it, drawn on top of it. The flower had been given green scribbles for its stalks and leaves, down to a few quick brown lines that was clearly soil. But below that, the ground was had been colored in red, and below the flower there was a large black oval.

What on earth was that supposed to mean? It certainly looked ominous.

She tried flipping to the next page and saw that it had drawn more. The pictures themselves were a bit awkward, almost child-like. The strokes from the crayons and pencils were rough and quick and unpracticed, like it was having trouble somehow.

The first picture must have just been it testing the drawing materials, at least from what she could surmise. It was another big black oval in the center of the page, surrounded by much smaller scribbles of what seemed to be bugs. Bees, mostly, if the combination of yellow and black was any indicator. It had already shown a fondness for insects and bees, which was not surprising.

The next picture was two…things…standing under a blue sky, with a streak of yellow and green behind them, which she guessed was the sunflowers. Again, the ground was red and brown beneath them. But the things themselves were…One was a figure, a human, and when she looked closer she felt that it was supposed to be her. It was lopsided and a bit fat, and her mouth and one of her eyes kind of went upward humorously on one side, but by the glasses and the line of the pin in her bun, it was supposed to be her. She was happy and smiling and holding out one arm with…She wasn’t sure what she was holding there, another red scribble…She was holding something out to the black oval, which was now standing upright beside her on the page.

The next page was a hastily-made depiction of a scarecrow, surrounded by yet another black oval. It wasn’t much more than a half finished collection of lines, but there was a long and rather eerily-drawn skinny body with large gloves and a line for one leg. The face was just a brown circle with a smiling line for the mouth that went past the borders of its own head, and the eyes were two large yellow circles where it had borne the crayon down very, very hard.

She swallowed down a strange feeling, instead making herself turn to the field and put on her own smile once more.

“These are great! I’m so glad we can at least draw together!” she said. “I wish you could tell me what these mean. And if you had a name, too-”

  
_“…I remember.”_

Pausing to muse over the drawings again, she had almost a comically delayed reaction time when the voice came from out of the sunflowers. It was low and warped and had a strangely echoing, almost buzzing quality to it. They were words, spoken words. The entity could talk, and it was talking to her.

Doubletaking, she nearly dropped the sketchbook as she jumped back from the edge of the field with a noise of surprise. Her eyes bulged so hard she could almost feel the lenses of her glasses against them, staring in shocked awe at the innocent mess of yellow bless. “Y-you can speak after all? You remember? What do you remember!”

She fumbled with her phone, clicking it on and struggling to scroll to the recording program, even as the unearthly guttural voice sounded again. It emanated from somewhere deeper in the sunflower field, out of view. She couldn’t be sure but…something about its tone, strange as it was, sounded confused, almost pained.

_“I remember when.”_

She hit the recording button and aimed it at the flowers, hands shaking with nervous excitement. “You remember when what? What are you remembering? Can you tell me?”

There was a long pause with no answer, before the sunflowers suddenly began rattling again. The scarecrow, or whatever it was, moved through them once more…Only this time, it was to go away from her. The stalks and blooms clattered softly behind it, and it headed off deeper into the field. And with the rapid speed at which it moved, it was only a few moments before it was entirely gone.

“Wait! Scarecrow, come back! What do you remember!”

It was no use. The creature showed no signs of returning and had abandoned the scene. Perplexed, she shut off her cameras. Her attempts at communication had gone better than expected, and now she knew that it was able to talk. And apparently, it was able to ‘remember’. But ‘remembering’ seemed to have alarmed it somehow as well, and it had fled before she could get anything more. She had no video evidence, but she did have its drawings.

Gathering up the sketchpad and the rest of her supplies, with the scarecrow’s words still buzzing in her head, she headed back to the house once more.

* * *

 

“Good bao.”

“Hm?”

Mr. Rutledge brushed crumbs from his bristled chin with his napkin. “Good bao. That bean paste does make a difference.”

Trying not to seem too distracted, she nodded and took another bite of her own dumpling. “Mmhm, I’m glad you like them. I’ll make the dessert ones too, sometime later this week. Anything thrilling happen in town?”

“No,” he rumbled, “…Did anything happen while I was gone?”

They looked at each other across the table. Mei picked up another dumpling and took a bite, chewing and swallowing before answering.

“Not really. I got everything done and the hives were all mite-free, everything was fine. Here, I’ll clean up.”

He held up a massive hand, grunting as he hefted his enormous bulk up and off his chair. “Leave the dishes for morning, save the hot water. Gonna take a shower.”

“All right.”

Maybe it was her imagination, but were both of them being…maybe a little too polite around each other? Did he suspect her? Was she suspicious of him? Were both of them suspicious of each other and trying to play it off, but just neither of them were very good at it? Was it all completely in her imagination and it was just the man’s usual gruff nature, and she was overreading? It was a bit impossible to tell, but she tried her best to act ‘normal’ as she gathered up the dishes and loaded them into the sink. If she was preoccupied with the haunted scarecrow in a field of flowers that he refused to acknowledge, she couldn’t let on.

Instead, she headed upstairs, past where the drawings were hidden out of sight in her pack. Changing into her pajamas, she took a few deep and calming breaths and settled down onto her bed with her tablet. Maybe she could distract herself for a while with nice normal things; reading e-mails, chatting, funny animal videos, maybe a few crossword puzzles or a rousing game of sudoku…

She lay atop the quilt, a pillow under her chest and her feet swaying slowly in the air as she occupied herself with some matching and memory games. Downstairs, she heard one of the bathroom doors slam, and then the shriek of a rapidly heating pipe somewhere in the walls. The plumbing really was terribly outdated in this house. But then, everything was. There were three separate bathrooms, only two of which worked, and her own bathroom ‘worked’ in that she only ever had boiling hot or icy cold water at a time. It was always a surprise in the morning to see which one she would be getting.

Mr. Rutledge honestly had no need for such a huge farmhouse. No doubt he had inherited the place, from back when farm families had multiple children running about at a time. Or at least, that was the only reason she could think of for such a lonely man living in a farmhouse that had more than five bedrooms. She still wasn’t sure how many rooms there were here. At least it had afforded her what was basically her own private wing of the place. He rarely ventured up the stairs, and even if almost all the door were locked except her bed and bath, it gave her a nice little cove of solitude, this home away from home.

Although it turned out she wasn’t entirely alone, laying on her bed and playing her puzzle games.

There was a faint buzzing around the ceiling, but she ignored it. It sounded like a fly and not a mosquito, at least. The buzzing continued, circling around above her, and started looping around so close to her that eventually she frowned and afforded an irritated glance upward. It was not a fly, but a bee, zooming about clumsily and occasionally tapping itself against the ceiling and windows, as trapped insects often did.

“Oh! Poor thing.” She hefted herself out of her pillows, reaching for her water cup and looking for a piece of paper. Downing the water, she found an old postcard and went to find the bee again, ready to try the old cup trick to trap it and shoo it outside. Searching the ceiling, she saw nothing, and wondered if maybe it had gone for the window.

Another buzzing sound spoke otherwise. Turning about at the noise, she found the bee had taken up a perch on one of the bedposts, fluttering its wings noisily. Frowning a bit, she wielded her cup and paper, moving towards it.

“All right, out you go…”

She paused only when the bee turned on her in an almost accusatory way, and began swaying both front legs at her.

Was the bee…waving at her?

She exhaled loudly. So much for a peaceful evening in. She froze mid-step, then narrowed her eyes at the little insect doubtfully. Lowering her cup trap, she waited and watched. The bee seemed to wait on her too, then began waving at her again. It was definitely waving. Still, just to be sure, she decided it would be polite to at least ask.

“Are you just a bee, or are you…from that scarecrow? Are you one of its? Or, er, his? Is it a he?”

The bee took off with another buzz, and began throwing itself at the door. _Tap, tap, tap._ Hovering in mid-air, it turned towards her expectantly. Well, that definitely made things a bit more clear. She pulled on her bedroom slippers quickly, opening the door. Turning a lazy circle around her head, the bee took off out the door and she followed.

Out in the hall, past rows of locked doors, she trailed after the little thing to the end of the dimly-lit hall. Only the light from her open bedroom made it this far, but there was nothing of interest here, just more locked doors. But surely the bee had brought her here for a reason? She waited, as the bee seemed to hesitate for some reason…before it rocketed upward suddenly, throwing itself against the ceiling. _Tap, tap, tap._

She looked up, and noticed a string that dangled there, attached to an attic door. The bee continued helplessly pattering against the ceiling there. It was entirely clear what it wanted her to do. A magical bee sent by a spooky scarecrow wanted her to break into Mr. Rutledge’s attic. Right. Not at all ominous, that.

Biting her lip, she looked back down the hall. The shriek of the hot water pipes belied that Mr. Rutledge was still in the shower, but maybe the water would drown out the sound of her opening this up? She hoped so. She had to make a decision while there was still hot water. Was this an absolutely terrible idea? Probably. But she’d wanted answers, and she wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by.

She made a little leap, missed, then made another. Her fingers managed to snag the string, and she practically hung from it with her entire body weight before it even budged. With a horridly loud scream of old metal springs and rusted joints, the attic door came crashing down and open. The wooden ladder unfolded before her, coating her with dust. Coughing wildly, she waved the clouds away, only to find that her mysterious bee companion was hovering just a few steps up the ladder, waiting for her.

Thankfully, she’d always been too timid to watch much in the ways of horror movies. But she was fairly sure that in those horror movies, nothing good ever came from sneaking about in strange attics. Especially pitch dark ones.

“Is…Is there a light up there?” She looked to the bee fretfully, who spun in a circle and hovered a little further up towards the attic entry.

She hoped that was a yes. Grabbing onto the ladder, she carefully tested her weight on it and began to ascend. Her nostrils were quickly assailed by an old, sour, mothballs and sawdust sort of smell. For half a moment, she was afraid of the possibility that she might smell something rotting up here. But thankfully it was the odor of any old attic she’d been in before. The square of light of the door was left behind her, reaching blindly out in the darkness. An answering buzzing noise guided her in the right direction, and a moment later her fingertips brushed another string.

Tugging on it, a bare dangling lightbulb lit up the room. It was…an attic. Nothing seemed nefarious, just kind of outdated and disgusting and covered in layers of gray dust. On both sides of her, it was little more than the triangular eaves of the house used for storing boxes and old equipment. No spooky scarecrows or bodies or even a scary mannequin or taxidermied deer head or anything out of the movies. Thank goodness. She did see an antique vacuum, an extremely dirty plastic Christmas tree, some golf clubs, a pile of bed frames, and stacks upon stacks of old boxes.

The bee didn’t seem interested in any of the standard attic junk. It hovered towards one end of the attic and she followed, the floors creaking under her no matter how softly she tried to walk in her slippers. Weaving her way in and out of the stacks, she saw the bee land on a particular box in one dusty pile and turn about in a few circles before it crawled into a gap in the top. Whatever it wanted must have been in there.

She began painstakingly hauling the other boxes off it. Oof. Heavy. One by one, she moved the other junk out of the way, before picking up this equally unassuming box and hurrying back to the light. Unfolding the top, she threw the flaps open to reveal its secrets.

…

Toys?

That was not what she had been expecting. Inside was a collection of old children’s toys. Dust had settled thick on them, but she began rifling through them anyway, trying to find what the bee had been so intent on. There was a teddy bear with a green bow, but it didn’t look nearly as well-loved and battered at the stuffed pig next to it. There was a collection of dinosaurs, wooden blocks, a broken toy horse with three legs, a red plastic water gun, some board games, a few action figures, and-

The bee sat on the edge of some papers at the bottom, waving its front legs at her and walking in circles. With a few careful tugs, she slid the yellowed parchment out from beneath the mess of toys. The bee, shaken loose, buzzed off somewhere else into the attic. The papers were children’s drawings; crayon ones, just like the ones she had seen earlier in the day. Although these ones had a very different owner. The first drawing was of a pink cartoon pig covered in brown scribbled mud. Near the top of the page, written in child’s scrawl, was the name: MAKO RUTLEDGE AGE 4 1/2

Lifting a brow, she began shuffling through the other drawings. They were mostly of animals and people, like any budding child artist drawing things from around the farm. One depicted gray squirrels sitting around a big green tree. More pictures of horses and cows and more bees. There was also a picture of his family, all holding hands and smiling, with clear and very helpful labels. MOM. DAD. MAKO. Another picture depicted a figure sitting in what she was pretty sure was supposed to be a wheelchair, although he was frowning with angry eyebrows. GRAMPA.

Charming, yes. And it certainly humanized Mr. Rutledge a bit more, seeing his childhood drawings and his family. She shuffled around a few more papers…and paused very, very suddenly. Somewhere in the attic, the bee began buzzing again.

Blue clouds in the sky, with yellow and green flowers. Two figures stood in the middle of the page. One was a smiling, squat little round character that she recognized at once from his other drawings. Sure enough, the label above proclaimed him MAKO AGE 4 1/2. But next to him, tall and skinny, with eerily long limbs, was another figure. Its brown glove was holding hands with the child beside it, looming tall above everything else. It had one line for a leg, and a brown circle for a head with a very, very wide smiling line for a mouth, bits of tan and yellow marking the straw coming out of its overalls and sack head. And colored in on its face, were two very bright yellow circles.

It was the scarecrow, drawn by Mr. Rutledge when he had been a young boy. From years and years ago, it was the exact same scarecrow from out in that field earlier today. And even more helpfully, above his head, in Mr. Rutledge’s poor young handwriting, was his label.

JAMIE.


	4. Chapter 4

She spread out the drawings and notes across her bed. After making a quick get-away from the attic, sending the door crashing shut again only moments before Mr. Rutledge’s shower had turned off, she had sequestered herself in her room. And this time, she locked her door. Not that he had ever tried to barge in on her before. She’d only ever even seen him upstairs once, to help her carry her bags into her room and that was all.

But she shut the door and she turned the lock, to be sure that it was just her and the bee…and the one who seemed to be in charge of the bee. Wherever he might have been. _Whatever_ he might have been.

He had led her to childhood drawings that must have been well over forty years old, judging by Mr. Rutledge’s age. But the scarecrow had drawn itself in the exact same way earlier that morning. Was it very old? Perhaps the scarecrow, or whatever was possessing the scarecrow, didn’t age? What was his relationship to the young Mako?

She had so many questions that for an embarrassingly long time, she didn’t even realize that she had a source of answers right there in the room with her. Her thoughts were buzzing in her brain so loudly that it took her several minutes to notice that the bee was buzzing in circles atop her quilt and trying to get her attention.

Blinking, she adjusted her glasses and looked down at it as it began to shuffle in little circles around the drawings that the scarecrow had made earlier that morning. She eyed it for a moment before biting her lip, casting a fretful glance at the door and keeping her voice low. “Jamie? Is that you? Right now? Are you Jamie?”

The bee wiggled its striped behind and shuffled about in a circle, clockwise. Of course. It was dancing. Bees communicated with their hivemates by dancing. They had their very own language. Some of her studies claimed that their dances had even been crudely translated; to things like flower types and directions and how much food was left in them. But Mei was less concerned with the matters of the bees themselves, than with who was controlling this particular specimen.

“Okay. If it’s you, turn clockwise for yes, and counter-clockwise for no. Can you understand me, Jamie?”

The bee shimmied clockwise. Yes.

She held up Mako’s drawing, tapping the aged yellow paper depicting him holding hands with the scarecrow. “Is this you? From years ago?”

Clockwise. Yes.

She wanted to ask how, but that was beyond the crude yes or no dances of insects. She needed to keep her questions as simple as possible. She thought for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she sat clutching her pillow to her chest. What to ask…?

“You must be very old, then. You were friends with Mr. Rutledge when he was a boy?”

Clockwise again. Yes.

“Are you…still friendly? With each other?”

The bee flickered its filmy wings and paused. But after a few moments, it spun about in the other direction. Counterclockwise. No.

Very gently, she reached down and placed her hand down upon her blankets, palm up. The bee clambered up her fingers and into her palm, and she cupped both hands together and laid them down in her lap, atop her pillow, looking down at the little insect. What a strange thing this was, to be quizzing a honeybee and having her questions reaching far and wide to wherever this Jamie was receiving them.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I knew why. Maybe we can talk about that later. But…do you think we could be friends? You and I can be friendly, right?”

Clockwise several times. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Its tiny legs tickled against her.

She blinked down at it. “That’s very enthusiastic. I hope I’m not pestering you too much. But I just have so many questions. I’ve never really met a… I guess I don’t even really know what you are? But you’re not a human like me, are you?”

Counterclockwise. No.

Goosebumps rose along the back of her neck. Of course she’d known he wasn’t a person. There was no way he could have just been a normal man in a scarecrow costume. But hearing him confirm it…or rather, him magically communicating through insects to confirm it, it still made her feel a little strange. She had never been very spiritual, focusing instead on the various sciences. But this ‘Jamie’ had made himself known to be something else. Something beyond anything she had expected to encounter on this farm.

“Do you think you and I could talk more? I heard you talk a little before,” she said. “Maybe I could come see you again?”

The bee in her palms lifted both its front legs straight up as if in a silent cheer, and she had to stifle a grin, biting on her lower lip. As strange as this situation was, that was pretty cute. Very carefully, she lifted one finger and brought it towards her new insect friend, coming to a halt in front of it. The bee’s wings flickered once more, buzzing gently, before it lifted one tiny black leg and went to place it against her fingertip.

“I’ll take that as a yes. It’s nice to meet you, Jamie.”

The bee danced about in a circle on her palm once more. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“I’ll try to find a way to get back to your field and see you soon, okay? I’ll figure something out. If you’re shy, you don’t have to come out of your flowers. But maybe we can still talk? Will you be there?”

Clockwise again. Yes.

She smiled, cupping the bee carefully into one palm as she rose and stacked up the drawings and notes on her bed, maneuvering them into her notebook and setting them onto her dresser. It had gotten late during her little misadventures in the attic, and she couldn’t stay up all night trying to figure out yes or no questions for something like this. If she was able to get some rest, she might be able to meet him directly, and really get some answers.

Tossing her quilt aside as she did every night, she slipped in between the sheets. She tamped down the pillow next to hers, and gently placed her bee companion into the middle of it. It folded its brittle little legs, laying down, but somehow she felt it was still watching her. Plucking her glasses off and onto the nightstand, she flicked off the lamp and lay down, snuggling into her own pillow.

“Good night, Jamie,” she muttered aloud.

There was no answer, of course. Not that she could hear.

She lay there in the stifling dark of her bedroom, mind still fraught with curiosity and unanswered inquiries. She wondered if the bee was still awake too. She wondered if Jamie himself was still awake, somewhere. Was he out in his field of flowers? Did he sleep? Did he dream? Did he have questions for her too? What was Mr. Rutledge’s connection in all this? Was Jamie his real name? Did he have a real name? Would he let her study him? She wondered so many things that it was starting to become exhausting.

And eventually, as one does when exhausted, she fell asleep.

* * *

 

She was back in the field of sunflowers, strung out above it, with the sun beating down on her. It was hot. It was too hot, always too hot here. She tried to move her head, but it felt heavy and sluggish, and there was a sensation that she knew, despite her dream state, was supposed to be pain. Why was she in pain? The sunflowers could offer no help, their cheery yellow faces all turned towards her, watching her.

The buzzing was growing louder. That was starting to hurt too. Everything hurt. So she gave up, and let her head droop helplessly downward. Down below, past the leaves of the sunflowers, she saw that the soil was red instead of brown. She would have thought it strange, but everything was strange in a dream. Now if only that infernal buzzing would-

With a rather unelegant snort, she startled awake. She had been sleeping with her mouth open, and one side of her face was laying in a cold and sticky puddle of her own drool. Ugh. That was almost as unpleasant as the dream she had been having these past few days. Almost.

Wiping at her chin and cheek, she made a face and reached out for her glasses, her fingertips groping blindly until they hit the wire frames. Pulling them on, she sat up and stretched, moaning as her spine arched back before she let herself slump downward again. With drool still on her chin and her hair mussed, she didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture. Good thing there was nobody around but-

“Oh!” She blinked stupidly behind her glasses, twisting to look to her other pillow. “Good morning! I’m sorry, Jamie, I forgot all about-”

The bee was dead, curled onto its side with its legs shriveled and pulled in tight.

She inhaled sharply. “J-Jamie?!”

Lunging across her sheets, she stumbled to kneel before the pillow. Carefully, she went to scoop up the tiny insect. It was weightless in her palms, a husk. Biting down on her lower lip, she tried to keep from panicking. Had she done something wrong? Surely she hadn’t rolled over on it during the night? Had it died of exhaustion, hovering about her for so many hours with nothing to replenish it? She hoped this wasn’t a sign of distress from Jamie himself.

A light fell across her from the window, the early morning sunrise. And she realized that it had not been shining on her before, because something had been blocking the light. The shadow moved from her window, darting to the side, and was gone.

She sat stunned, one hand cupping around the little honeybee and holding it to her chest. Very cautiously, she slid out from under her sheets and tossed her legs out over the side of the bed, bare feet finding her slippers. Padding around towards the window, she saw something that gave her pause. A little glimpse of yellow near the glass panes.

Hurrying forward, she began pulling up strips of tape and wrenched out the nail that had been reinforcing the window shut. With a rattle, she heaved it open for the first time in days. Hot, sticky air swept over her, wet with evaporating dew that was steaming from the grass outside. She hadn’t realized just how cloying her bedroom had become, without fresh air. And it brought with it the early morning birdsong and the soft bleating of an impatient goat from outside on the farm.

And there, laying on her windowsill, was a sunflower. A single bloom, cheerful yellow petals surrounding the porous brown face, attached to a green stem that had been cleanly cut. One of his sunflowers.

Not like the flower that had blackened and rotted away when she had tried to take it by force, when she hadn’t known what they meant. This one stayed whole, even when she very carefully reached out and touched the tip of one green leaf. Picking it up and turning it about, an expression of smitten wonder on her face, she ran a finger along its petals and looked out across the rooftops once more. There was no sign of its owner. But he had to have been here. He had been with the little bee first, and then there in person…whatever ‘person’ was to him.

A tiny breeze ruffled her tangled hair as she looked out across the still-sleeping farm, squinting in the dim light. But after she was sure he was gone, she drew back inside, taking her flower with her. She left the window open.

She gently placed both her flower and the bee atop her desk. She would need to put it in water, maybe take some samples from it later. But the fact that it had been gifted to her, that he was speaking to her, and answering her? She was at a bit of a loss. She would need to make her way back to the field as soon as possible, with her recording gear and cameras and everything else. She had just made contact with something beyond any scientific discovery, possibly the first instance of…whatever this was.

And Mr. Rutledge had known of this since he had been a small boy, and had said nothing? Jamie had seemed hesitant before his answer that they were no longer friends. Had there been some kind of falling-out between them? This strange, otherworldly scarecrow monster and the quiet, solitary farmer? What a sad thing, for them to be so close by, but both seem so lonely.

Maybe she would ask Jamie about it. Maybe she would ask Mr. Rutledge about it too, although she doubted she would get much from him. She’d had about the same amount of conversation with the man as she had with a mind-controlled bee that could only answer yes or no. She probably would get more out of the bee, all things considered.

It was a long trek out to the fields and back, and she didn’t want to arouse suspicion yet. And even with her little plot with the increased trips into town, it would be a while before he needed to go out again. There was really only one thing for it. Something she’d only seen in movies, with rebellious teens that were nothing like her, because she’d been such a good girl.

She would need to sneak out.

* * *

 

She stood on one side of the fence, helping to stretch out a length of barbed wire while Mr. Rutledge measured and snipped, grumbling low under his breath. It was so baritone that it almost sounded like the pigs nearby, gurgling and grunting to themselves as they crowded around to watch them- clearly hoping that their presence meant food, as it usually did.

“…Don’t know how she keeps getting out. Patched all the holes, sunk the fence deep, reinforced the gate. Even the barbed wire isn’t stopping her.”

She watched as he strung another length of barbed wire horizontally across the fencing. “Has she always done this? Do they all try to get out, or is it just Winifred?”

“Mostly her. Always been an escape artist, since she was a piglet.”

“Did you raise them all yourself?”

“Mm.”

“I mean…all by yourself?” she asked. “Or did you have family or other students like me to help you?”

He paused for a moment, then resumed twisting the wire around the pole. “No. Just me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. I was just wondering if I’m your first student assistant?”

That seemed to relax him a little. It seemed an innocent enough question. “No. You’re the first one.”

“Can I ask why?”

He shrugged, narrowly missing catching himself on the spiked wire and yanking his gloved fingers away. “Dunno. Getting on in years. Not as fast as I used to be. Man on the phone said you were quiet and responsible. And you have small hands. Good for getting in the hives.”

She squinted at him behind her glasses, trying to tell if that was a joke or not. It didn’t seem to be. “Well that’s…Um. Thanks?”

“Worried about your grade?”

“A little?”

“Books can’t teach you everything about a farm. Not even close. This-” He motioned to the pigs crowding around them. “-is more than agricultural studies in a classroom. This is more important than a mark on a paper.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Rutledge, I think my research is important too, and so is my grade so I can work towards that. Papers and studies have their place. What about you, did you attend college?”

“No. Home-schooled,” he replied gruffly.

“Oh?”

“Had to be.”

Mr. Rutledge seemed chattier than normal, which was hard to imagine. So she seized her chance, prodding at him for just a little more information, a few more pieces to the puzzle that was this farm. Clearing her throat, she unwound another length of barbed wire for him. “Can I ask if it was something religious? Or did your parents not agree with the local schooling policies?”

“Had to stay here on the farm. Can’t go too far. Have to stay here.”

“Well I mean, you don’t have to. If you need to leave, I’m very capable of holding things down until you get back. I mean, I’m not expecting you to take an impromptu beach holiday or anything.”

“Dunno. Never been to a beach.”

“Really?” She tilted her head, brows furrowing slowly. “Any beach? Or, maybe a lake? Or…Mr. Rutledge, have you… _ever_ left this farm? Or gone beyond the town?”

“…No.”

She was going to ask why, but he lifted upward with a low grunt, wiping at his forehead and pulling off his gloves. “It’s Wednesday. Go start dinner while I finish up.”

There was something final to his tone, a ‘no arguments’ sort of way that he spoke. As though he knew she was going to ask more from him and was stopping it before it could start. He didn’t even look at her, starting to wind up the remainder of the barbed wire as the swine started to crowd around him, bullying her off to the side in a mass of dirty pink bodies.

At a loss, she carefully stepped over one of the smaller pigs and headed for the gate, brushing away the flies. That was going to be all she got out of the man, it seemed. But it had been…interesting. And unexpected.

Mr. Rutledge had never left the farm. It sounded like he hadn’t even ever crossed county lines. This man had been here literally all his life, and that must have been at least his late 40s, maybe early 50s. He had been here, in this one place, for nearly half a century. And once, he had been friends with the mysterious entity out in the fields. But at some point, he and Jamie had become…enemies? And now here they both were, still on this farm, and apparently still at odds.

Was he still here by choice? She knew such people existed, who staked a claim to their home and never left it. Farmers in particular, like him, could become so attached to their land that they simply no longer needed anything else. But…she could have sworn there had been an edge of resentment under his tone. Perhaps she had simply imagined it, with the man being so hard to read.

Closing the gate behind her, she returned to the house, washing up and heading into the kitchen to start their dinner. It was hard to focus on pan-frying and steaming when she had other things on her mind, of course. But Mr. Rutledge’s appetite matched his enormous physique, and she busied herself with adding more and more helpings of her tried and true Dandan noodles into a huge bowl that would probably have fed five other people- or one Mr. Rutledge and a modest portion for herself.

Waiting impatiently, she finally heard the door slam as he returned. Immediately, she scooped up her bowl and made a show of heading past him and up the stairs. “Sorry, I have a lot of work to do on some of my essays tonight. Do you mind if I eat in my room?”

He paused to watch her, looking strangely put out. Perhaps even a bit hurt or concerned, though again, it was always tough to tell. “Normally…we eat at the table…”

“I know, I’m really sorry. But I made you a lot and everything is all ready. I’m just going to camp out and eat and work for tonight, okay? I promise I’ll come wash out my bowl and make sure everything is tidy before bed, okay? They’re Dandan noodles, a little spicy, but I think you’ll like them? I know you like a little bit of heat but not too much, with extra sesame oil and…Okay! Good night! I mean, not good night, but, see you later good night!”

She was babbling by the end of it, retreating up the staircase the entire time and not letting the man get a man in edgewise. Not that he even tried, tilting his head up at her until she vanished into the room and shut the door behind her. She hoped she hadn’t been too suspicious. And she hadn’t expected him to actually seem a little hurt by her not eating with him. After all, that was how he had been eating for years, alone.

But she had other things to do, even if the excuse about the paper had just been another lie…well, a white lie, a very small one. She couldn’t think about that now.

Putting aside her bowl of noodles onto her dresser, instead she pulled on her backpack with her usual gear. It was a good thing that summer days were long. The long trek to get to the sunflowers meant that she wouldn’t have much time to speak to Jamie before she’d have to leave again, to get back before it got dark. But he had been contacting her directly, even leaving her gifts, he _wanted_ to speak to her. Maybe she could even convince him to show himself.

The difficult part this time would be in actually getting to him. She still didn’t want Mr. Rutledge knowing that she was already knee-deep in this situation, not when there was still a very good chance that he might deny her her grade, or worse, kick her out before she had a chance to do anything more. And he was currently downstairs, guarding both of the exits.

But even though it might be a little dangerous, she had another idea. She’d seen it when she had been hanging out of her window earlier. A trellis, supporting a tangled web of ivy and morning glory, had been fastened to the back of the house. And it was a metal trellis, criss-crossing wires that had been sunk into the brick and wood with metal bolts. She’d tried to give it a tug from below, earlier when Mr. Rutledge had not been looking, and thought it might support her weight. Lucky, really. A wooden one would have been a death trap.

She paused only to lean over to the little husk of the dead bee, laying on a piece of folded tissue near the sunflower in its dusty vase. Careful not to disturb it with her breath, she whispered a little, “I’m on my way,” even if she wasn’t sure he could hear her or not.

Hoisting herself up and out of her bedroom window, she cautiously lifted herself onto bent knees and very, very carefully made her way across the farmhouse roof, picking her way across cracked or missing shingles and the tar paper beneath. Heights didn’t unduly bother her, but falling two and a half stories was not on her to-do list this evening. Still cautious, she traveled the short distance to the other wing of the house, towards the back.

There was the metal trellis, dotted with flowers. It…Well, it certainly looked like it was higher up than when she had been looking at it from the ground. And there was a gap between it and the roof. But, nothing for it. It was climb or jump. And she chose to climb, perilously hanging one leg down until her feet hit one of the wires. Gripping the edge of a drain pipe, she held her breath and lowered down all the way. Letting go of the drain pipe was a little harder, leaving her top half perilously tilting in the air until she was able to blindly grip the wire below her.

Now twisted up like a spider on the side of the house, she started the journey downward. It was not comfortable. Her cheek scraped the side of the house several times, and the metal wires felt more brittle when she was trying to put her weight on them.

Halfway down, to the first floor now. One of the wires was more brittle than the others, it seemed. As she put her foot down and was starting to move her other leg, it abruptly snapped in two. Her falling foot hit the wire under it, which snapped as well at the increased force, and then she was clawing at the ivy, dragging it down with her as she fell. With an accidental shriek, she went tumbling through the air, falling free of the wall altogether.

Her side hit one of the shrubs that had been planted in the mulch by the house. Contrary to their look, shrubs were the exact opposite of a comfy landing site. Instead of being soft, they were simply a mass of tiny leave and numerous small, spiky twigs. They snagged her shirt and her skin as she fell, and ripped open little scratches on her way to the ground. She landed on her back, and though the backpack cushioned her somewhat, the wind knocked out of her lungs.

For a moment she could only lay there, afraid that something had snapped or broken. Coughing to try and restart her breathing again, it was a minute or two before she tried to move. At least it had only been one story to fall, though she was now bleeding through her ripped t-shirt and would no doubt have a massive bruise for her troubles.

“O-ow…”

One of the goats across the yard, watching from their pen, bleated in what she could have sworn was laughter. Jerks.

Groaning and holding her ribs, she sat up and waited to see if Mr. Rutledge had heard her, maybe charge out after her to catch her in the act. But there was no slamming doors or scoldings coming her way, it seemed. No time to see if her fall had damaged any of her gear. With red trickling from her cuts, she hauled herself back to her feet and hurried off towards the fields.

* * *

 

The dying sunlight painted the world in hues of gold and pink and orange, so different from the yellow-blasted light of the hot day. But it was still dry, and the withering leaves of the crops rattled and hushed against one another as she moved between the rows. The pumpkins were still small, stunted from the weather. Some of them were rotting on the vine. The corn had suffered as well, brown and curled on the edges. Everything was dry and dusty and bathed in faded pastels…except for, again, the sunflowers.

Across the sweetgrass, they stood as tall and bright as ever. Around her, the cicadas were going silent one by one, replaced with the song of eager crickets. A few fireflies were starting to wink their lights off and on as they drifted across the little field, getting ready for the sun to fall. It would have been a stunning evening if she had not been bloodstained and sore.

But it would be worth it. Even if she didn’t have very long, she was here. Smiling a little despite herself, she straightened her glasses and trudged forward. And this time, she didn’t even have to wait. From out in the flowers, he was already on the move. The stalks rattled and clacked, the yellow blooms shaking as he cut a path through them, straight towards her.

She paused a small distance before she reached the edge of his sunflowers, and he paused as well. They sat across from each other, with her just out of reach and him still obscured by green and brown. Tangling her fingers together, she cleared her throat and suddenly felt a little foolish. For everything she had thought to ask him, she hadn’t really thought about how to actually greet him.

“Hi Jamie. I, um, I got your message,” she finally said, a little lamely. “I mean, messages. The flower. And the bee. I’m sorry about the bee, it died during the night.”

He moved within the stalks, getting closer.

“I guess I just have so many questions,” she continued. “I know your name is Jamie now, but there’s still a lot I don’t know. But I also don’t want to bother you or be rude. But I guess I was hoping that tonight I would finally get to talk to you in person. Now that I know you can talk too. Maybe we can answer each other’s questions? Maybe I can see you, too, if that’s not too much? I’ve only seen you in drawings.”

For a few moments there was silence, and then his voice. It was still as strange as the first time she had heard it. Its pitch went up and down, and there was an echoing and almost buzzing noise to it.

“ _You’re hurt…_ ”

Blinking dumbly, she lifted her arm up to look down at her injured side. Sure enough, her blood had soaked in a rather gory-looking way into the white fabric of her shirt. “Oh! Oh, I’m okay! Really, it looks worse than it is. I fell and scratched myself up a bit, but I’m all right. You don’t need to worry.”

The sunflower stalks parted in front of her, a little deeper in. From the green and black, two yellow circles appeared. Unblinking sources of light, they lit up the bottoms of the flowers around him. Below his eyes, was the stitched and smiling mouth that she had seen from the drawings before. It was not the most comforting visage, especially as the night was falling and the path back to the house seemed longer than ever.

She swallowed down her nerves. “Oh! I see you a little bit now. H-hello in there.”

“ _Are you scared…?_ ”

There was a strange little noise, droning and buzzing and hissing, like a nest of hornets had been disturbed and their bodies were scraping over something metallic. It wavered up and down, and after a moment she realized it was his laughter. He was chuckling at her. What an unnerving sound. She made herself take another deep breath.

“I guess I am. A little bit,” she answered.

The pair of eyes swerved to the side, as though he was tilting his head. He laughed again, as though the idea of her being scared was somehow amusing. She wasn’t sure what to think of that. Inside the flowers, his head tilted the other way.

“ _Hurt. And. Scared._ ”

“A little of both. I hurt myself falling. And people are afraid of what they don’t know. But I still came. I’m still here.”

That made him pause. He seemed to think her words over, and apparently he found some liking to them.

“ _Me too. Still…here._ ”

“Will you come out?”

Yet another pause. Hesitation. For a moment, she thought he might decline and stay hidden, as he had before. She couldn’t press the matter too much, no matter her curiosity. If he didn’t wish to be seen, then she would leave him be.

But the stalks parted, and the glowing yellow eyes moved forward. And then they began moving up, and up, and up. And she realized that he had been crouching before, lowered in some creeping hunch. He reared up to his full height, stepping forward, and she saw that he was even taller than the sunflowers themselves. One foot creaked forward, only it was not a foot- some makeshift limb that looked like it had been cobbled together from tractor pieces and wood. The joint popped and he sank his weight onto it, coming out of the green entirely.

Looming upright, he towered over the girl who stood frozen below. The glowing eyes turned out to be lenses, which clicked when they ‘blinked’, momentarily casting her into shadow. They were attached to what looked to be a burlap mask, a ragged slit that had been cut open and re-stitched as his mouth, though it did not move when he spoke, his voice emanating from the darkness inside it. Tufts of dry straw sprang from his head, rustling with every moment. Under his ragged overalls he wore a stained old flannel shirt, torn in place so she could see glimpses of what lay beneath. His body seemed to be much the same, stitched together pieces- only they did not look to be burlap, more like flesh? Maybe it was just a trick of the light. She dared not move her gaze from his face to really look.

His other foot, a real foot, wearing an old work boot, landed beside his peg. He seemed to exhale, skinny chest growing and shrinking, and she was struck with the scent of sickly-sweet, rotting hay. Like the inside of an old barn, abandoned and left to molder, not at all like the flowers she had expected.

She didn’t move. Didn’t budge an inch. Like a deer in the headlights, she simply stood there, beholding the mysterious stranger from the sunflowers for the first time. This 'Jamie'. He looked down at her, and she could swear his stitched-open grin widened a little.

“ _Hello. Mei._ ”


	5. Chapter 5

Danger.

All her instincts screamed of danger. Something new and terrible was standing in front of her, looming over her. Adrenaline coursed outward from its source, the glands behind her gut, which clenched tight and painful as her limbs began shaking, ready for the inevitable fight or flight that was sure to occur, with such a predatory force within killing distance. The animal part of her brain bid her to flee with all her might. It also bid her to evacuate her bladder and do whatever it might take to get away. Just get away from it.

But luckily, she was trained beyond such primal thoughts. Logic and manners bid her to stay her course, even in the face of the unknown. Even though she was trembling, which was quite beyond her control, she made herself stay still. It would do her no good to panic, especially after it had taken such coaxing to even get the entity to show itself. Although, what a form it had chosen…

And he certainly did not seem to be shy now. Jamie slunk low once more, circling and slinking around her, still chortling to himself with that dry, scraping, buzzing sound from earlier. The soft hush-hush-hush of crackling straw was faint with every one of his movements, moving around her like a hyena closing in on some unlucky wounded calf. The faint yellow glow of his eyes occasionally clicked or focused, and the open mouth of his mask remained wide open and grinning. Mei could not help but wonder what was inside of that gaping mouth, if it wanted to devour her.

She cleared her throat, and her voice was more quavering and shrill than she wished it was. “H-hello Jamie. I-it’s so n-nice to meet you in…in person.”

He laughed again, swerving back to stand in front of her and bend back down to her level, still seemingly gleeful at her visit. He leaned close, and the stench of moldered hay was almost overwhelming. “ _Hello, Mei. Mei. Out here again._ ”

“Y-yes. Ahem. Although I’m afraid I can’t stay very long. But I j-just wanted to speak, um, face to face?” Her eyes darted to his grinning mask. “So to speak.”

“ _Faces? Yes. Speak, out here with me. Nice sweet girl. Don’t worry._ ” He reached out as if he wished to touch her, but drew back at the last moment, spindly fingers curling inward.

His method of speech was strange and halting, seeming to blurt things out too suddenly, and his tone went up and down in strange places, becoming questions in the middle of sentences or dropping to a rattling or giggling growl at the end. It was impossible to tell much from his inflection. He had told her not to worry, but she could not gauge his sincerity at all. She couldn’t help but worry.

“You sent that bee to contact me, didn’t you? To introduce yourself?”

“ _To show you._ ”

“To show me the pictures in the attic? The ones Mr. Rutledge drew when he was a child? May I ask why?”

He swayed back and forth in front of her, and her eyes moved to and fro to watch him, like a snake being charmed as he thought about his answer. “ _Drawings. Little boy. He’s gone now, but I remember._ ”

Mei looked up at him with a startled blink, straightening her glasses. “You remember? You said that before. Is that what you meant when you said that you were remembering? Drawing with Mr. Rutledge as a boy?”

“ _Yes…NO. More. Before the boy._ ”

“You remember…” The talk of ‘remembering’ made her jolt a little, and she remembered something as well. Her equipment. She was here to record this Jamie, to secure her discovery with physical evidence. But she also didn’t want to scare him by moving to retrieve it so suddenly. So she held up both hands where he could see them, which caused him to tilt his head curiously as she went to undo the straps to her bag. “Listen, Jamie. I’m going to get something so I can record you, okay? Just going to get it out of my pack.”

“ _Reeee-cording?_ ” Jamie echoed. “ _Recording?_ ”

“It’ll play your words back to me. It’s like…I guess it’s a bit like putting a drawing on paper, but with sounds. Is that okay with you?”

He didn’t answer, just standing there as stiff as the scarecrow he was pretending to be. Mei’s eyes darted, but after a moment she carefully maneuvered the pack off her shoulders and onto the ground. Praying silently that nothing was broken, her groping hand found the shape of her phone and she drew it out… The screen was cracked on the lower left side and her heart dropped, but it lit up and responded to her touch, bathing her face in harsh blue light.

Jamie uttered a strange noise, between a hiss and a shriek, reeling back and taking a step back towards his field, and Mei nearly panicked.

“No! No no no, it’s okay. See? It’s just a phone. I guess you might not have seen one like this before? Mr. Rutledge certainly doesn’t use one. It’s just a phone, and it lights up.” She held it up again, the electric blue light almost drowning out the yellow that he emitted. But he took a hesitant step forward and relief almost flooded through her that she hadn’t scared him away. “It’s fine! I’m just going to use it to record you. Okay?”

“ _Phone drawings pictures…_ ” His eyelights clicked as they focused on the glowing screen, and he muttered as if trying to recall a word. “ _…Photograph. Photo. So pretty._ ”

“Hm?” She turned the phone back around, and saw he must have meant the picture on her home screen, a photograph of her looking excitedly up a the camera while bottle-feeding a baby goat wearing a Christmas sweater. “Oh! Um. Thank you. It’s a silly picture, but it was sooo cute.”

“ _Sooo cute!_ ”  
  
“So you know what photos are? Then…how about I take your picture?” she asked, perhaps a bit slyly. Perhaps he would agree to it all so long as he understood that it was non-threatening. “You just stand there, okay? And I’m going to take your picture and then I’ll show it to you.”

He didn’t answer, merely tilting his head again with a soft rustle. She guessed that was as good as any affirmation, and lifted the camera up. The lighting wasn’t the best, but now was no time to be picky and she didn’t want to scare him with the flash. She lifted her phone, waited for it to focus, and then clicked the button. It beeped and she eagerly looked down to see how this new evidence was turning out… only to find that it had not turned out at all. The picture she had taken was absolutely distorted, streaks of brown and two yellow lights that were smeared in all directions, as if he was moving rapidly in many different ways all at once.

But he hadn’t moved at all, standing placidly before her. She tried again. Click. More streaks and blurs, and what vaguely might have been his smiling mouth. It seemed that getting picture evidence was not going to be so easy after all. She turned it to video, and was greeted once more with nothing but a distorted warp field around his form…which dissipated when she aimed the camera away from him. But focusing on him was going to be impossible. This might be harder than she’d thought.

And Jamie seemed to be growing impatient while she stupidly fumbled with her phone. He rocked back and forth on his broken-parts peg leg and his bare foot, watching her. His glowing lenses clicked down occasionally, and she noticed he kept looking at the stained red part of her shirt. That was fine enough. Perhaps he was curious, or worried. What was not fine was when he started to reach out one filthy leather glove, stretching long fingers towards her wounded ribs.

“ _Red._ ”

That was a little too much, and Mei lowered her camera and shied away, taking a step back. “Oh! Y-yes, it’s red. I told you, I fell down and scratched myself pretty bad, I’ll have to clean it up when I get back.” She bit down a bit into her lower lip, curiosity lifting its head. He seemed so interested in its color. Maybe it was unusual to him? “Jamie, do you have any red? Are you like a human, where you can bleed? Red?”

He thought for a moment, lifting one gloved finger. Then pointed down to the ground, staring straight at her.

She looked to where he was pointing, but saw nothing. Just the dry grass. “Oh, is that…Sorry, are you trying to show me something?” She tried looking, adjusting her glasses and leaning closer, but still nothing. Grass and dirt. “I’m sorry, I don’t see anything.”

“ _Red._ ” He pointed down again.

The grass was definitely not red, and that prickling and unpleasant feeling was back. Something that told her that this topic was not something she wanted to pursue further. Not with…him. So she just nodded. “Okay. Maybe I can look another time! H-how about you tell me about yourself, Jamie? Maybe you can tell me what you are, first? Since you’re not a human, do you have a name?”

“ _Jamie._ ”

“Yes, but- I mean your other name, the name of what you are? Your species? Or, maybe you can tell me what you’re doing here? How long you’ve been here?”

“ _A…long time. Waiting._ ”

That got her attention. So he had a purpose- some sort of goal. “Oh? Can you tell me what you’re waiting for, Jamie?”

“ _To be over. No. Over?_ ” Once again, the scarecrow seemed to be having a bit of trouble getting his thoughts in order, and the apparently challenge of verbalizing them. It jerked to one side, head rustling as it turned, looking up at the darkening sky as if searching for words that it could not find. “ _Over. Over. Under? No…!_ ”

“That’s okay,” she said, trying to be soothing as she saw his frustrations grow. She definitely did not want him to become upset. “That’s okay, we can talk about that later, all right? It’s fine. Has it been a while since anyone has been out here to talk to you?”

He nodded, wrapping long, long arms around himself in what might have been a rather pathetic gesture if it had been on anyone else. Even then, despite his frightening countenance, she felt a tinge of pity. Even if he was unnerving, she could recognize loneliness when she saw it. Perhaps that was even an explanation as to his strange behavior and manner of speech. Maybe it had been so long that he’d forgotten how to talk to people.

“That’s a shame. Both you and Mr. Rutledge are out here so far away from everyone else, and you’re not talking to one another. Is it okay if I ask why?” She almost reached out to him, but thought better of it, clutching her phone instead. “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

Jamie thought things over once more, then leaned down with one arm, holding out one hand somewhere above his knee, wavering a little. “ _Little boy. Little fat boy._ ”

Instinctively, she narrowed her eyes at the insult, scolding before she could stop herself. “Jamie!”

He looked somewhat taken aback, the lights cutting off as he ‘blinked’ at her.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…we shouldn’t say those sorts of things about someone. That’s rude.”

“ _That’s rude,_ ” he echoed, clearly not understanding. “ _That’s rude!_ ”

She shook her head, deciding to let it go. He was having trouble using his words enough, and now was no time to spring a lesson on manners on him. Again, she could not risk upsetting him. For her research, and for her own safety. He was just a little too interested in the concept of her blood for her to let her guard down. She still had no idea what she was dealing with, and unfortunately, he did not seem to be able to answer her yet.

‘Yet’. He was still talking to her, able to speak and form sentences and he understood humor- albeit a warped form of it that made her a little uncomfortable. Maybe he just needed to be socialized with more, and then she could get more out of him…maybe even find a way to record him somehow or get evidence of his existence out to the proper academic channels. And if this Jamie had been out here for almost half a century, alone, maybe the poor thing would appreciate having company again.

It would do neither him nor Mr. Rutledge any good if she suddenly had news vans and paranormal investigators sweeping across the farm like locusts, disturbing the way of things here. It had taken her so long just to coax him out of the flowers, and he seemed to… like her? In his own strange and maybe slightly disturbing way. It had been cute when she had known him as a bee, or a scribble on a paper, or a flower on a windowsill. But the gangly scarecrow, if that even was his real form or just another one of his affectations or guises, had to be approached carefully.

“So the last time you and he talked, he was a little boy? That must have been a long time ago. Has anyone else come to see you since then?” she asked, leaning back very slowly as he bent down to look at her again. She just needed to keep her cool. Nothing to be afraid of. He was a little spooky, but nothing to be afraid of. Yet.

“ _You’re here,_ ” he pointed out, mask still smiling widely as ever. “ _Mei.”_

“That’s true. Still, that’s an awfully long time to be alone. Are you okay out here, on your own?”

He looked at her more sharply, the glass lenses of his masks clicking. And for a moment he seemed…Well, she wasn’t entirely sure. He seemed affected by such a simple question, maybe even a little choked up. “ _Sweet sweet girl, Mei. No, not alone. Look. Look!_ ”

His gangly form moved so quickly that she almost didn’t see it. There was a blur of dull color, almost like when she was trying to take his picture, and then he was suddenly behind her, and leaning down with his arms open. She froze up, body going stiff as a corpse, and her eyes widening behind her glasses. The stench of old straw was thick enough to choke her at such close range, and there was something else behind that…some other smell she couldn’t yet put her finger on. And she could not stop to wonder, as his arm looped around her almost as if to embrace her, but not touching.

A gloved hand rested in front of her face, spreading trembling digits. She did nothing, said nothing- fairly sure that even her heart had stopped beating. There was a faint buzzing sound in her ears, and she wondered if he was laughing at her again. But then the buzzing got closer, and it was accompanied by a yellow and black striped body that landed on his outstretched fingers. Then another, and another. For a moment, she thought them to be bees, but a quick glance proved otherwise.

They were too long, too shiny, and too dangerous looking. Wasps. Several of them, clinging to his glove. He was holding a hand full of wasps right in front of her face.

“ _See!_ ” he gleefully whispered behind her.

Bravery in the face of the unknown was one thing. At least there, there was some uncertainty. But she knew what wasps were. She knew what wasps did, and this time she couldn’t stop herself. She screamed, jolting backward, felt her hurt back brush the front of his tattered overalls. So she jolted forward, almost into the wasps, and then finally managed to duck and stagger out from under his spindly arms, spinning in a stupid little circle as she fled to a safer few steps away.

Jamie just stared at her, and with his masked visage and lack of expressions, she had no idea if he was angry, or amused, or offended, or anything else. He slowly stretched back upright, still holding the wasps clinging to one hand, skittering over him with their skinny little legs moving their striped bodies all over. Fortunately, he did not offer them to her again, and seemed perhaps a little confused if anything.

“ _Mei?_ ”

“Y-you scared me, is all. Those are wasps, and I don’t want to get stung.”

“ _No. No, they won’t. My friends. Your friends. Mine yours._ ”

“So you’re ‘friends’ with insects around here? The bees and wasps and flies and everything? M-may I ask how?” Her nerves were still shot from having a fistful of wasps almost pressed against her nose, heart still thudding. “And…you won’t let them sting me, right?”

“ _Sweet, nice, never! Tell them not to.”_

“Well that’s…that’s good to know?” she answered nervously. Honeybees were one thing. Wild wasps were entirely another. “I guess I’ve never met anyone who can talk to insects, much less ask them to do things. I know you can speak to the bees. In fact, I bet there’s so much we can learn from you, Jamie. About the bees and everything else. I was learning all about the honey around here, too. If you asked Mr. Rutledge’s bees to pollinate these sunflowers, you m-”

“ _NO!_ ”

Yellow blared bright in her vision, blinding her. He was suddenly in front of her again, and she nearly fell right back on her rump. But he lifted out of her face a moment later, limping a few steps away to face the field of sunflowers. The wasps crawled up and down the stitches on his arm.

“ _Those…are mine…_ ” he said. And for once it was not a string of words trying to escape him as he got his thoughts in order, it was a full sentence with clear intent and meaning, downright threatening.

Mei dared not say anything for a long while, and her voice was a little watery when she spoke up again. “I…I’m sorry? I can give you back the flower you gave me? I didn’t mean to try taking one before, I didn’t know…”

“ _No. No, that one, for you._ ” He turned back upon her, seemingly cheerful again. Hobbling back over, he once more slouched down to her level, his masked visage grinning. As she watched, one of the wasps crawled into the stitched hole that was his mouth, and did not emerge. He took no notice, his echoing voice continuing. “ _Only for you. Not him.”_

“Y-you mean Mr. Rutledge? I don’t understand, Jamie. Why is it you’re so angry at him? You said he was just a little boy when you met.”

“ _Not a little boy. Not anymore. Big. Dangerous._ ”

She frowned. “Well he is quite a bit larger than a lot of people. And he’s not what I would call friendly. But he’s been as kind as he can be to me, since I arrived. He’s a lonely man, but he’s certainly not dangerous.” She paused, biting into her lip. “Er…is he? Dangerous? Why would you say that?”

A shudder passed through his gangly body, and the insects clinging to him went buzzing off in all directions, one of the wasps circling around her head before it flew away. She winced and shut her eyes, though they sprang open again a moment later when there was a very brief pressure atop her head. The lightest touch of a filthy glove, pressing down and then lifting away. He had just patted her like a dog, seemingly trying to be comforting despite her feeling very much the opposite of comforted.

“ _Won’t let it happen to you. Mei. Keep you…safe._ ”

“Let what happen to me? Jamie, please, if I’m in danger, you have to try and tell me why.”

“ _Don’t believe them..._ ”

“You mean Mr. Rutledge? Don’t believe him about what?” Frustration and alarm was starting to take over her nerves, only precariously held in check. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Please, can you try and elaborate? Does Mr. Rutledge want to hurt me? Should I leave?”

“ _No! No don’t leave!_ ” He whirled around on her once more. “ _No! No, keep you safe. Don’t leave._ ”

Despite his frantic reassurances, a quick glance past him and up at the sky belied that she did actually have to leave. The sun was down and the night would soon truly be upon her. Already the last rays were starting to fade from orange to purple, and there was absolutely no way that she intended to stay out here after dark. No matter the scarecrow’s intentions, she couldn’t even fathom the thought. His glowing yellow eyes were already looking more and more eerie as the shadows grew darker around them.

Problem being, she was no long sure if she would be safe back at the house either. Jamie either wouldn’t or couldn’t tell her what the threat seemed to be, or why he was so at odds with Mr. Rutledge despite acknowledging that he had only known him as a young child. And even though he was not the most gentlemanly of people, she had a hard time imagining him as the sort that would lure young women to his farm and then feed them to his pigs….Right? Surely not…?

She took a deep breath, clasping both hands. “Jamie…If I go back to the house, will I be safe?”

“ _Yes. Yes, safe, don’t worry._ ”

“Okay. Then I’m going to head back, but-” she held up a hand when he started towards her, as if alarmed about the prospect of her leaving. “But! Just back to the house. I’m going to come back as soon as I can. Hopefully soon. I’ll come back. But for now I need to wash all this blood off m-”

“ _Red.”_

“Yes, red. I need to wash off and clean up these scratches. And then I’m going to look into some things. And then maybe next time, you and I can have more time to talk and you can tell me more about you, and Mr. Rutledge, and your flowers, and everything else. Because I’m going to be safe, right? You’re sure?”

“ _Sweet, safe, Mei._ ”

“Okay. Okay.” She inhaled deeply, trying to soothe her frazzled nerves. “Then…Have a good night, Jamie. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“ _Soon._ ” He said it firmly, both a demand and a promise., tilting his masked head one way and then the other.

She nodded one last time, then shouldered her bag and started off on a brisk pace back across the field and back to the footpath that would lead her back to the house. One last glance back towards the sunflowers saw that Jamie was already gone, though she couldn’t be sure where. Her head was buzzing with thoughts. She had come to get evidence and answers, and was leaving with uselessly smeared blurry pictures and more questions than ever.

Jamie hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, but she couldn’t blame him. He was not a person like her, seemed to have trouble getting himself in order, and had earnestly seemed to be _trying_ to converse with her, as much as he could. But she still had no idea as to what he was, or what the interference was when she tried to get him on film.

Plus, there was now the concern that he seemed to think Mr. Rutledge was dangerous in some way. The odd entity seemed intent on keeping her ‘safe’, but she had no idea from what. And something about not believing them? Although he had said ‘them’, which was confusing in itself. What wasn’t she supposed to believe? And what exactly were Jamie’s methods for keeping her ‘safe’?

And she reached the outskirts of the farmhouse proper, there was another important question.

How was she supposed to get back up to her room?

Both doors opened to the main hallway, and she could see the blue glow of the TV playing through the window. The screen doors were not exactly quiet, and the wooden doors had squeaky hinges. He would definitely see her try to sneak in if she tried to use the stairwell. He didn’t lock the doors at night, so maybe it was better to just wait and try to sneak in after he had gone to bed? Although…that would be hours from now, and her ribs hurt and she felt awfully exposed out here, wrapping her arms around herself and looking about in a rather lost way. Even if the room wasn’t technically hers, it was a sort of safe haven for her, and she wished she was inside it. Maybe then she actually would feel ‘safe’.

She paced out in the backyard, trying to sort out the mess inside her head as the dark closed in around her. The nightly chorus began their song; crickets and frogs shrieking from the direction of the half-dried pond, and somewhere an owl was hooting. The fireflies were also out in force, their tiny yellow lights blinking all over, mimicking the little pinpricks of light where the dazzling stars were starting to appear one by one in the sky.

It would have been a lovely evening if she wasn’t stuck outside in it.

Something buzzed, and she waved a hand against any errant mosquito. But it wasn’t the keening whine of a bloodsucking pest, it was the buzz of a flying insect. A bee? The little insect flitted past her, then hovered in the air, and she frowned. It was not a bee, but a wasp. Likely sent after her by her watcher in the fields.

Casting a nervous glance at the window where the TV lights still flashed, she lowered her voice. “Jamie, it’s okay. I’m fine, see? I’m safe. I just…I guess I just need to wait until I can get back inside, since I broke the trellis to the window?”

The wasp buzzed closer to her, and she reeled back. Halting in the air, it spun in a circle, flew a distance off, then turned and waited on her. Sighing, she followed. It led her towards the back porch, to the back the house, and where one of the shrubs was still a little flattened on one side where she had landed on it. Oof. Hopefully Mr. Rutledge wouldn’t notice that?

The buzzing sounded again by the broken wires of the trellis, and then there was a different noise. A sort of rustling? It sounded like leaves in a breeze, but there was no breeze tonight. No relief from the stifling heat. And it was constant, almost like something was moving in the flowers? It was hard to tell in the dim light, but after a few moments of inspection, she realized that there was nothing moving in the flowers. It was the flowers themselves, moving.

Before her very eyes, the morning glory vines were shifting. Slowly, but surely, they were moving on their own. Slithering up as a living thing, their gnarled vine roots clutched at the broken wires where her foot had gone through, weaving themselves over each other. She watched, wide-eyed, as they spun themselves thicker, cheery little blue flowers dragged along for the ride. The metal wire of the trellis had been dragged back into place, reinforced with the vines, and now gave her a path back up to her window.

Well, that was…admittedly, a little wondrous to behold. It seemed that Jamie, whatever he was, had more tricks up his sleeves than just insects. Shaking away her awe, she looked for his latest messenger. It was only polite to thank him, after all.

“Jamie? Where are you? I mean, where’s your…You know. If you can hear me, thank you.”

There was a buzzing noise somewhere down by her feet. She almost jumped a little, but clicked on her phone. She was standing in the flattened area where she had fallen, and there was the wasp from before…standing with its head and antennae waving furiously, inspecting and circling around a collection of dark speckles on the dirt, right where she had landed. Blood. It had found where her blood had seeped into the ground.

_Red._

She almost could hear him saying it, though she shook her head clear and stepped away quickly. Mounting the once-broken trellis, she began the laborious process of climbing. To her surprise, it was easier climbing up than climbing down, and the wires- now reinforced and knitted with morning glory- held fast. It was a bit of a squirm to get onto the roof proper, and it scraped her ribs and made them hurt, but with one last heave, she pulled herself up, carefully standing and throwing out both arms in a balancing act as she walked the slope back to her window.

Tossing her bag inside with a little thud, she hefted herself up and crawled through. It was just as she had left it, with her lamp glowing a warm welcome and the cold bowl of dinner noodles right where she had left it. With a relieved sigh, she took in a shuddering few breaths. Safe. Well, not entirely safe. The gifted sunflower was still bright and cheery as ever in its vase full of water, and she could swear that somehow its very presence meant he was still watching her.

A pang from her ribs reminded her of more important matters, and she headed for her bathroom, clicking on the pink-tinted antique light above. Rifling through her medicine cabinet, she came upon a collection of cotton balls, peroxide, and slightly out-of-date anti-infective creams. Hiking up her bloodstained shirt and bra, she examined herself in the mirror.

Owch. No wonder it had been aching all evening. The scratches were worse than she’d thought, and her entire side was smeared with crimson. Wetting the cotton and wiping it away, she saw the telltale magenta marks that were sure to deepen to blue and purple bruises as the blood settled beneath her skin. Nothing to be done for those. Instead she focused on the jagged cuts, hissing a breath as the foaming ichor cleaned over the open pink beneath.

Slapping on an entire collection of band-aid adhesives over the worst of them and splashing her sweaty face with water, she peeled off her ruined t-shirt and tossed it away, pulling on her fresh pajamas. Even that made her feel so much better, no matter how chaotic her thoughts. She returned to her bedroom, grabbing her cold bowl of noodles along the way, pulling out her notebook and her collection of drawings, and her cracked phone with the useless blurred photos. Snatching up a pencil, she began writing, going over their questions and conversations as best she could remember, while it was still fresh.

With her chopsticks in one hand and her pen in the other, she started recording the night’s happenings. And there had been quite a few. She had been left with more questions than answers, more confusion, and more danger than before. This farm was a veritable treasure trove of discoveries to be made, and she had barely scratched the surface. She just hoped that as she dug, she wouldn’t find murdered chickens or deadly buried secrets along the way.

He had promised to keep her safe, but from what? Could Mr. Rutledge be trusted? Then again, could Jamie? She knew so little about either of them. What else did Jamie know, and what was he ‘remembering’? What was Mr. Rutledge hiding from her? She would need to get information out of both of them. Carefully. She still had a lot to do.

Glancing up, she eyed the sunflower on her dresser, listening to the faint thrumming base of the television playing in the den below her, barely audible over the shrieking choir of the summer night.

Starting tomorrow, it was time to start digging.


	6. Chapter 6

That dream again. She knew from the beginning that it was a dream. She’d never had so many of them in a row like this. The sunflowers and the buzzing and the pain in her limbs and in her head and all over her. Everything was fuzzy around the edges of her vision, wavy and unclear, like a mirage in the middle of a desert valley. Maybe it was the heat, or the pain, or the combination of it all…but she’d never felt such misery. She hung above the sunflower blooms, out in the middle of everything, like on the scarecrow’s pole. And everything hurt, though in that faint way that things often hurt in dreams.

But she still tried to move her head. It took a monumental effort, straining her neck until she could feel the phantom tendons aching. Just barely, she struggled her eyes upward enough that she could see shapes in the far distance. Something rose beyond the sunflowers, but in front of the distant trees and hills.

A barn? It had the vague shape of a barn, but not one she recognized. It wasn’t the barn where she and Mr. Rutledge kept the hay and supplies. It wasn’t in the right spot, wasn’t the right type of barn. Somehow it looked older. And she wished she had the strength to keep studying it. But she could not keep her weak head up, and it slumped back to her chest weakly.

The droning in her head became sharper and more focused…and something moved in front of her. There was a wasp. The one from earlier that day, maybe? It was the only thing clear, hovering in front of her face and slowly coming into focus. Unable to move, she felt its whirring wings buzz to a stop, then the soft tickle of its legs as it landed upon her face. It trailed across her temple, and she tried to shut her eyes but could not.

The wasp skittered across her forehead and over an eyebrow, dangerously close to her eye, enough that she could see a stripey blur in the corner of her vision. Down, across her cheek, poking its horrible head around her nostrils…and then it started to pry between her lips. Was her mouth open? She tried to shut it, but it was already struggling to get through. She could feel its horrible, smooth body and flailing insect limbs as it forced its way between her teeth and onto her tongue, and down her choking throat, and-

***

* * *

 

She awoke flailing, clawing at her face, leaving red marks as her nails raked down her neck. Coughing and gagging, she clutched at her jaws and nearly vomited, still feeling it inside her. But after a few ragged breaths, the sensation faded. Just that dream. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She smacked her lips, and tasted nothing amiss. Still, it took her a few moments before she was comfortable enough to peel her white-knuckled grip away from her own throat, wincing at the lacerations she’d left in the skin.

That horrible nightmare, over and over again. It had to do with Jamie, she was sure of it. Though whether it was just the product of an overactive and nervous mind, or some horrible side-effect of…whatever he was…she wasn’t sure at all. Still shaking, she took a drink of water from her bedside table and cleared her throat repeatedly, coughing and coughing until her esophagus was sore and raw. Until her throat hurt like the rest of her. Combined with her bruised ribs and the aching scratches on her back, she wasn’t feeling particularly wonderful. It had been a while she’d really slept well.

But she had things to do and knew that she should get started. Pulling on her slippers, she shuffled off into the bathroom. Her reflection looked about as haggard as she felt, with shadows under her eyes and her hair in tangles from writhing so much in her sleep. Peeling up her pajama shirt, she saw that the bruises from last night had settled, and her entire side was covered in ugly purple and blue and black marks. Some of the bandages over her cuts had turned red, probably from agitating her wounds in the night.

Her shower turned out to have hot water this time, thankfully. The scalding spray and her invigorating green tea shampoos helped chase away some of her lethargy, scrubbing away the dried blood and scabs on her poor battered body. But last night’s adventures could have gone far worse, all things considered. Her fall could have resulted in broken bones instead of bruises, and the vines on the broken trellis has led to the discovery that the entity in the field could manipulate plants as well as insects.

Turning off the shower and twisting the knob very hard to stop the dripping, she toweled off her hair and pulled on her robe. The horrible wasp dream had faded somewhat, and the shower had provided some much-needed relief. She could tackle the rest of her day now, shoving a toothbrush in her mouth and turning on her hair dryer, double-handing her morning routine.

Spitting foam into the bowl of the porcelain sink and opening the bathroom door to let the steam air out, she wiped a hand across its moisture-laden surface and smearied away the perspiration. Somewhere behind her foggy reflection, past the open doorway of her bedroom, she spotted a brief flicker of movement. A honeybee turned a circle in the air and then landed on the vanity near the opened door, fluttering its wings and crawling towards her. Mei ‘s gaze turned suspicious, pulling her robe a little tighter around her as she rinsed out her mouth and turned to face it.

“Jamie, is that you?” She pulled on her glasses and squinted at her little visitor.

The bee lifted a spindly black leg and waved at her.

She sighed. “I told you, I’m fine. Really. And you’d better not be sending anything to spy on me when I’m changing or I’m in the bathroom, understand? I promise I’ll try to talk to you later. But I have work to do for a while. So, go on.”

The bee waved both front legs at her but didn’t budge. Mei pressed her lips together more sternly, facing him down. She never would have had the bravery to do such a thing to his scarecrow form, but it was a lot easier to deal with him when he was acting by a very cute little proxy, and ‘Jamie’ was about the size of her fingernail.

“No but’s, Jamie, I am not budging on that rule. I told you, I’ll come see you later. And no bees in the bathroom! Shoo!” She turned on her hairdryer and aimed it at her stubborn visitor, the blast of warm wind sending it whooshing helplessly up into the air.

The honeybee recovered quickly enough, righting itself mid-air and hovering around for a moment. She could swear it was eying her, but then it did a little loop of defeat and buzzed back out her open bedroom window. Shaking her head, she turned the hairdryer back towards her still-wet locks and continued her morning routine. Hopefully that would settle the matter and he knew to give her at least some privacy around here. If he showed up in scarecrow form, she doubted that a hairdryer would be enough to ward him off.

Twisting her hair up into a bun and pinning it in place, she finished dressing and went loping downstairs, the old wood creaking with every step. Mr. Rutledge was already puttering about in the kitchen, grunting a noise of greeting her way as he ladled an enormous heaping of oatmeal into an equally enormous bowl. Sinking down onto a chair with a rather silly and precious little floral print cushion, he reached for one of his selections of honey and dribbled the golden liquid atop it.

“Morning,” he grumbled.

“Morning, Mr. Rutledge,” she answered politely, fixing herself her own bowl of oatmeal and joining him at the table, brushing aside a pair of piggy salt and pepper shakers out of her way and setting a napkin in her lap. She mimicked his choice, spooning more honey into her dish, and then taking a little taste at the last. She held it on her tongue, squinting as if trying to figure out the bouquet of it. “Mmm…Don’t tell me. Less floral. Sweet, though. Um…earthy?”

He rumbled what was almost a chuckle. “Closer.”

“Not spicy or floral. It’s…it’s a crop plant, right? Alfalfa?” she guessed.

“Mmn. Berry. Had a good blackberry harvest that year.”

She sighed. “Well, I was way off on that one.”

The giant man merely offered her a shrug, taking a spoonful of his oatmeal and taking a long pause to chew and swallow before he answered. “Most people don’t know enough about it to even taste that there is a difference. You know more than most… Long night?” His last question was so abrupt and so monotone that she almost didn’t hear that it was a question at all. And he was looking right at her.

Blinking at him, she pushed her glasses up her nose and quickly averted her attention back to her bowl. “Um…I guess it was a little long. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

“…No?”

“Bad dreams, sometimes. It’s okay, though. I know everyone gets them. They just kind of…they’re startling to wake up to? Unpleasant.”

“Nightmares? That where you got those?” He motioned up to his own throat.

She lifted a hand self-consciously to her throat, where he must have seen the red and white marks of her fingernails from earlier that morning.“Oh. I-I guess it was worse than usual.Yes. What about you, do you get them?”

“Not to where I claw my own neck.”

“This is a first for me too. I’ve never hurt myself before, during dreams.”

Mr. Rutledge stirred his spoon around his breakfast slowly, staring down at the trail left behind in the mulled oats, clearly thinking. “…Yeah. What are they about.”

“My nightmare this morning?” She didn’t want to tell him. Not about the sunflowers or Jamie or the wasp in her throat. So she offered a shrug back. “Nightmares are just an unconscious brain’s way of trying to deal with memories of stimuli. Especially primal ones. That’s why people the world over, no matter their culture, have a lot of the same ones. You know, embarrassing yourself in class, or falling into nothingness, or teeth falling out. What about you? Do you think they mean anything? Bad dreams?” she pressed lightly, as casually as she could.

“No. You’re right. They’re just dreams…Don’t have to mean anything.”

She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t know why. Maybe it was this newly kindled distrust that Jamie had set in her. That the creature in the fields described this man across from her as ‘dangerous’. But dangerous could describe so many things, and the scarecrow hadn’t been able to tell her what type of danger he meant. She still had no idea how much she could believe it, either. Mr. Rutledge didn’t seem like a murderer or a thief or anything violent to her. Though he was certainly strong enough for it. He just didn’t seem to be ‘dangerous’.

But he was a liar.

He had been quiet and evasive from the start, and she had thought that was simply the way he was. And maybe that was true. But he still lied. Both by omission and directly. Jamie too, had specified not to believe ‘them’, and must have meant Mr. Rutledge. And she couldn’t even be too angry at the man for it. Because she had lied to him as well. She had always thought of herself as honest, but she had spent her entire stay here lying right back to him, sneaking about, and warping the truth.

And even now, she was going to keep telling lies, because she did not know what else to do.

She put her smile back on, casually stirring more honey into her bowl. “Mr. Rutledge, I’ve been working on some essays about my stay here. And writing about just the beekeeping itself can get sort of dry. I really want to focus more on this farm itself…and its history. Your history.”

He did not look convinced, spooning up the last of his oatmeal. “Mmn. Don’t need to write about me if it’s about agricultural progress.”

“But you’re a part of it, Mr. Rutledge!” she insisted slyly. “This farm must have been in your family for years, along with this house. I’ve seen some of the antiques and farming tools from years back, they’re positively ancient, and this farm has grown so much since then. You said you even have crop and honey records from generations back. That’s fascinating.”

The old farmer was still clearly reluctant. “I’m not that interesting. Not for a paper.”

“I promise you I won’t write anything about you in a personal matter, if you prefer. You can even look of my papers before I send them off. But my program would be so impressed if I included the historical aspect of this place along with my learning here. Maybe you could just tell me more about the farm?”

“The farm…What do you want to know?”

“Well, how old is it? Has it been the Rutledge Farms all this time or did anyone else ever own it? Did it always have the apiary or was it founded for crops? That sort of thing.”

Mr. Rutledge leaned back in his chair, thinking for a long while as he often did before answering. But he seemed to find nothing objectionable to her first questions, nodding and sitting forward once more. “Not sure of the exact year. Records were spotty back then. But my great great grandfather is supposed to have procured the land somehow, and my great grandfather was the one who first started keeping records of the hives and gardens. Been in the family for generations.”

Mei listened keenly, hopping up to quickly dump her bowl by the sink, ripping off a paper and taking the pencil on the fridge usually meant for the grocery list. Hurrying back to the table, she began scribbling notes. “That’s a lot of generations back. So I take it your parents taught you everything about farming? You mentioned you were homeschooled, earlier.”

He shrugged one massive shoulder. “Mm. Nothing to do but carry on the family farm and make a living. They taught me.”

“So you grew up wanting to be a farmer too?”

There was a very subtle dip of his head, and Mei knew the man well enough by now to see that she had touched a nerve there. “Mmn…Not really. Family business, family farm, family house, family graveyard, everything about the Rutledges is here. This is our land.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “You really don’t have to answer anything if it’s too personal, I’m not trying to be offensive or nosy.” Which was another lie. She was being exceptionally nosy and prying for information from a wary subject, but she had to maintain her academic airs to get anything out of him, and there was nothing for it. She just needed to be careful.

“Hmm…”

“Well, it’s still so impressive that your ancestors managed to get a farm up and running out here. Back then, when everything was wilderness. That kind of history is really interesting,” she wheedled, keeping away from abject flattery as she knew Mr. Rutledge to be the sort without such pretenses. “And that they had the forethought to start keeping records of the honey production from hundreds of years ago? Maybe you could show me your family library sometime?”

He snorted a bit at that. “You want to sort through a bunch of dusty old books?”

“Well, that’s what lots of university students do, is sort through forgotten things. That’s where a lot of history is, is buried inside dusty old books. You wouldn’t mind, then?”

“Hmmgh…I’ll get them out for you. Never had much interest in them, mind. No idea what condition they’re in.”

“I’ll be super careful,” she vowed cheerfully. “Any other interesting facts about Rutledge Farms? Any thoughts about its future?”

He stood, the chair creaking as his immense weight was finally lifted and the straining wood relaxed. Wordlessly, he began rinsing out the morning dishes, and Mei’s only answer was the clanking of bowls and pans and the hiss of water against metal and porcelain. With anyone else, she might have repeated the question, or assumed that it hadn’t been heard. But she’d been cohabiting with the man long enough to know that he listened well…most often, it was that he simply chose not to answer, or took his time in doing so.

The entire collection of dishes were methodically and neatly washed, dried, and stacked away. And Mei remained politely sitting in her spot, pen to paper, waiting. Eventually- very eventually- he turned back towards her.

“There’s no future here,” he said, and she couldn’t really place his tone. “I’ll get the records for you later. No more questions now. We have a lot to do today. Watering. It’s been too dry.”

Without looking at the young woman who was still holding her pen at his table, he ambled his immense bulk past her and out into the rest of the house, towards the long hallways full of locked doors and unused rooms, to wherever it was he slept. Mei was left alone once more, slowly setting her pen down. She hadn’t gotten much writing done at all, and the tiny memo pad paper wasn’t even halfway filled. So much for her interview.

But she’d at least gotten him to agree to look through the farm’s records. Not that she was certain of what she’d be finding in them. But if the scarecrow really was as old as he seemed to be, then perhaps she could find something on him in the dusty Rutledge annals. Maybe he’d been known to the family before the young Mako had scribbled his first drawings. She had no way to be sure, but hopefully she could remind and pester their owner into letting her dig through them later on.

Although that last question had clearly bothered him. ‘No future here’? She hadn’t been able to tell if it was anger, or sadness, or resignation, or a mixture of any of them. The old farmer was still too hard a read for her, too often. But he most definitely had not been happy. In his own words, he saw no future here here, in his own home. What a strange thing to say.

But she left him be for now, and loped off to put on her gear and gloves to start the day. It was getting truly light out, and she could already hear the world starting to sizzle under the rapidly brightening yellow glow of day. It was going to be yet another hot and dry one, and the withering stillness held no promise of rain. Even the birds seemed to have grown weary of the endless summer heat, and the morning was strangely silent, though not for long.

She heard the morning cicadas lifting their voices to greet the sun, and wondered if Jamie sang along with them.

***

* * *

 

There was little they could do for the poor bees except keep the water buckets full. In this kind of heat, the queens had stopped laying and kicked out the drones, and the worker ranks could no longer risk traveling long distances to find flowers. Instead they moved constantly in and out of the hives, desperately fanning droplets of water near the brood to keep them cool. The hives themselves were clustered in mounds of writhing insects, abandoning the inner combs to try and keep them cool. But if this heat kept up for too long, it would result in dead brood, dead bees, and no honey to sell.

The bees were not the only things frantic for water. The rest of the animals had been drinking more, the mud for the pigs had dried into a cracked dry pan, and Mei had seen everything from deer to foxes and everything else in the woods come venturing down to the half-dessicated pond near the house. The plants were suffering as well, and dealing with them in particular seemed to be their task for today. Though some of the closer gardens had the luxury of a hose with holes poked in it to serve as irrigation, for everything else they only had two pairs of hands and a bucket each.

Mr. Rutledge had no trouble lugging an entire cistern of water out with him each go, and went about his task with the same silent and stalwart aplomb as he did with everything else. Mei did not fare nearly so well, lugging her much smaller bucket with both arms hanging taut and her legs apart in more of a waddle than a walk. With the sun beating down and getting ever closer to noon, she was soon sweating so much that she could probably fill her bucket with perspiration alone.

When she had signed on for assistant beekeeping, she must have ticked a box for ‘slave labor’ along the way. Her muscles ached and she was covered in smears of dirt and dust clinging to her wet skin. She had first hoped that she might use the watering as an excuse to get closer to Jamie’s sunflower field and somehow sneak his way, but Mr. Rutledge had instead assigned her to the far eastern, smaller fields. It made strategical sense that the larger and stronger of them would have the bigger fields, but she still wondered if it was just to keep her away from the western side.

Still, cunning plan or not, she felt just a tiny bit grateful that she was only hauling water half the distance, dumping them over the vegetable and herb gardens. Though the poor herbs were probably shriveled and tasteless like everything else in this drought, and the water would barely be enough to keep them alive, much less thriving. Returning to the rusty-handled water pump, she grabbed on and heaved it up and down, listening to the rush of water as it filled her bucket. Wiping at her sweating brow, she groaned as she hauled it upright and turned to head back to the squash and-

_“Mei!”_

She nearly slammed face-first into the lanky figure that had been standing directly behind her, the momentum of her swinging bucket spinning her around even as she shrieked in surprise. Like a drunken ballerina, she turned a sloppy pirouette and promptly landed right on her already-injured side on the ground. Pain lanced through her bruised ribs, her upended bucket rapidly glug-glug-glugging its contents all around her. Now she was covered in mud as well as dust, hissing through her teeth as she held her side and stared up at the last person she’d expected to see here.

The scarecrow grinned down at her, eyes still glowing bright despite the sunlight all around them. Tilting his head in mild curiosity at her newly ruined state, he looked down at his glove, back to her, to his glove, then back to her…and then finally seemed to make the connection. As If realizing what he was supposed to do, he held out one long arm, opening his hand in a bid to help her up.

Mei flinched away at first, but he merely held steady, eyelights clicking as he blinked down at her. Still wary of touching him, she very hesitantly reached up, brushing the cracked leather glove her wore with her fingertips. It felt like any other old workglove, and it felt like there was a solid hand beneath it. Packed straw, perhaps? Flesh? Something else? She only had a moment to wonder before he was grasping onto her forearm and hauling her up out of the muck as if she was light as a feather.

Vainly trying to wipe herself off and only succeeding in smearing herself further, she gaped at him with clear shock. “Jamie! W-what are you doing out here? It’s daytime and it’s close to the house and you’re not supposed to be here like this!”

“ _Like this?_ ”

“You’re supposed to be a bee!” she said, then realized how stupid that sounded, waving a hand up and down him. “I mean you’re supposed to be in the bee! I mean, as a bee? You’re not supposed to be here in person, like _you_ being here!”

“ _I’m always here,_ ” he pointed out, grin unchanging.

That sounded vaguely threatening, but she was too panicked to care. “Not during the day! What if Mr. Rutledge sees you?” Craning her neck up, she looked around as if expecting to see the old farmer’s massive form already bearing down upon them. “Oh, we are going to get in so much trouble. You need to go home. I mean, to your field. You’re only supposed to be here as a bee-”

“ _You said no bees,_ ” he replied.“ _This morning._ ”

“I meant in my bedroom when I’m taking a shower! We have this concept called privacy-”

“ _What are you doing?_ ” He ignored her consternation easily enough, instead prodding his leg at her now emptied bucket.

“I’m watering some of the plants for Mr. Rutledge. He’s out watering the rest of them. Working. We’re working. You must have noticed how dry it’s been? All the plants are dying except your flowers, we’re just trying to keep them from drying up. You’ve seen droughts before, haven’t you? When it doesn’t rain in a long time, that’s drought.”

Jamie shrugged in a rather unconcerned way, instead demanding “ _Come talk to me._ ”

“I told you I can’t. Mr. Rutledge might see you and I have to work. I’ll come see you after the work is done.”

“ _What!_ ”

With his limited understanding of social graces, Mei was afraid of an incoming tantrum. Indeed, the scarecrow did not seem particularly happy about the situation. Even though his mask hid any expressions that she might recognize, his posture tensed and his fists clenched and he uttered a noise that she could only describe as an angry beehive about to swarm. But somehow- maybe it was the daylight or because she was closer to the house or maybe she was just cranky now that she was sore and muddy- she wasn’t as afraid of him as she had been the other night.

Instead of cowering, she put her hands on her hips. “Jamie, you stop that. I have work to do and I can’t talk to you now. Just because your flowers aren’t dying doesn’t mean we can just ignore everything else.”

Even though he continued making that dangerous-sounding angry drone, she turned and dutifully began to refill her bucket, grabbing onto the water pump and heaving her entire weight on it to force more water up from the pipes. Jamie’s angry noises gradually resided as he watched her curiously, before deciding to try and engage her again, once it was clear that his annoyance was not going to sway her.

“ _Work. I’ll work you work, faster than,_ ” he said, his words garbled but his meaning clear.

“You want to help? You can do things with the plants…can you make them better? Help them?”

He considered for a moment, tilting his masked visage up at the sky; clear and blue with fluffy white clouds and no promises of rain. But then he shook his head, and Mei supposed that he had no influence over the weather. Instead he tapped at where his chin would have been, then reached out and snatched up the water bucket, lifting it up with barely a flick of his wrist where Mei had struggled mightily just to barely hold it off the ground.

“W-wait! You can’t let Mr. Rutledge see you! I don’t know when he’ll be back-”

“ _Where to water?_ ”

“Um, just any of the plants that are dry? Just try to get it around their roots. Look, you can help me for a few minutes, but after that you’ll need to leave before he sees you. I still don’t know why you two are fighting, but we don’t need to start any trouble, okay?” She picked up another bucket and proceeded to pump it full of water…and had that one also snatched away from her by the eager Jamie, taking up both in hand as he ambled off into the gardens ahead of her.

She soon joined him with a third bucket, and he watched keenly as she carefully upended it, pouring water into the rows of thyme and rosemary as she went down the line. He mimicked her, having far less trouble with the weight as he went down an entire row of squash and tomatoes in less than half the time it would have taken her on her own. And to her surprise, he seemed to be having actual fun doing it. He even showed off a bit, and she caught him sometimes waiting until she was looking his way before proceeding, dumping water into dirt as artfully as one could do such a thing.

Mei had never had anyone try to impress her by hauling water buckets before, but his raw strength was indeed impressive. She showed him how to refill the buckets, and he sped up until he was practically dashing past her every other minute, carrying water to each parched plant at rapid speed. At least she would get her task done in record time, though she still kept a wary eye towards the house in case Mr. Rutledge returned early.

“Jamie, I appreciate your help, I do. But we still need to be careful, okay? What is it you’re even doing here?”

“ _Talk to me._ ”

“Did you want to talk about something?”

“ _Any things all things._ ”

“Were you just lonely?”

He made a noise of distracted affirmation, tilting out his bucket once more. “ _Long time since…talking. Anyone._ ”

She couldn’t find it in her heart to be irritated with him after that, sighing heavily and twisting her hair back into its bun, replacing the pin where it had started to come loose. “I guess if I hadn’t talked to anyone in almost half a century, I’d probably look forward to it too. But you have to promise to keep an eye out for Mr. Rutledge coming back and don’t let him see you, okay? Um…Do you have eyes, actually?”

He reached up and tapped on the warped lenses that glowed from his strange inner light.

“I meant behind the…Okay. Well you have a form of eyes, at least,” she said, leaning down to continue her work. At least Jamie was a more willing subject to interview, if she could translate his strange answers. “I meant to ask you before. Are you really a scarecrow? Or do you just look like one? Maybe there are more scarecrows like you and we could find them for you. If you’re lonely, maybe we can find your own kind.”

“ _Own kind?_ ”

“Maybe you don’t all look like scarecrows. Could it be that you’re some form of…I guess, possession? Like when you’re controlling an insect, you’re possessing it. Maybe you’re just possessing this scarecrow as a body? Or are you a species?”

He muttered something inaudible to himself, looking down at his hands in confusion.

Mei smiled sheepishly, shoulders hunching. “Sorry! I guess that was too much. Maybe you can tell me about your ‘powers’, possibly? I know you can tell the insects to do things. But you made those vines move last night, so you can control plants as well? That’s amazing!”

Jamie preened a little at that, lifting up even taller and broadening his shoulders in a distinctly human motion. “ _That’s amazing! Amazing!_ ”

“I guess the sunflowers are your favorite, since you keep them green somehow? Do you water them?”

He paused at that, then lowered his bucket and pointed to the ground again. “ _Red_.”

“What?” She looked, but there was nothing there but a very poorly eggplant. “No, that’s purple. Well, it’s supposed to be.”

He shook his head, groaning at her misunderstanding. Trying again, he pointed to the ground, then towards the west. “ _Sun, flowers, under, sunflowers, red-under._ ” He pointed back to the dirt, then towards the west, then started making circular motions with both hands that she couldn’t begin to decipher.

“No, no, sunflowers are yellow. Um, under the…wait, red?” She paused mid-pour, thinking back to the crayon drawings he had made days before. Underneath the sunflowers, he’d drawn the soil red with a black oval. “You mean under the flowers, there’s red?”

He grinned and nodded, straw rustling.

A chill crept over her, and one hand slowly drew itself up to her side, where her ribs still bore bandages from her fall into the shrubs…Bandages stained with red. That night, when he had kept trying to touch her soaked shirt, repeating its color. Red. Red. Red.

“Blood?” she wondered aloud. “The red under the sunflowers?”

He grinned and nodded again.

“Jamie…” She gave him a very hard look over the rims of her glasses. “What does that mean? What are you trying to tell me?”

“ _Red keeps…them, sunflowers, yellow green,_ ” he said, after much effort.

“Jamie…What does it mean? What did you do?”

“ _Red from-_ ” He paused suddenly, rearing and standing straight up as he looked over her…then dropped both buckets and made to abandon the scene entirely. He crouched and bound upward and away like a startled gazelle, with such force that the dust scattered in all directions from his jump, rustling her hair and almost bowling her over. Off like a shot, his form blurred into streaks of yellow and brown as when she had tried to take a picture of him, too fast for her eyes to even follow. And then he was simply gone, and she had no idea where.

She stood back up, utterly bewildered, then looked behind her and saw the reason for his panic. She had told him to be watching for Mr. Rutledge’s return, and he had done just that. Adjusting her crooked glasses atop her nose, she could make out his unmistakable frame far away, coming towards the house from the dirt road leading into the farm fields. It was a poor time for his return, but Mr. Rutledge seemed to have an uncanny ability for unfortunate timing.

Mei hurried to gather up the discarded buckets, running back towards the water pump with them bouncing and bruising against her mud-spattered legs. Stacking them up, she cast one glance back towards where Jamie had vanished, then went ambling down the path towards the house. A glance at her watch revealed that it was well past noon by now, and she had been so busy with her visitor that she hadn’t noticed that lunchtime had come and gone, and it was lucky that Rutledge hadn’t come even sooner.

He stared her down with what appeared to be incredulity when she arrived, lofting a brow. “…How did you fall in mud during a drought?”

“Heh. Um, tripped and spilled a bucket on myself,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. Not that telling lies should have bothered her now, turning into a horrible liar of a person along with everyone else in this confusing place. “But the gardens are all watered!”

Mr. Rutledge’s other eyebrow lifted. “The entire thing?”

“Mm-hm!”

“…Surprised. Thought maybe you’d make it halfway. Or not even. Stronger than you look.”

“Th-thanks?” she said, squinting at the vague insult.

“Lunchtime. Then we can both use a break.” He lifted his hat, wiping a massive arm along his soaking wet brow. “Too hot out. Come on.”

Still somewhat rattled from Jamie’s sudden appearance and his eerie words, Mei paused at the top of the farmhouse’s porch stairs, looking out to where she last saw the scarecrow disappear. A cold and heavy dread had settled in the pit of her stomach, and her brows knitted as her teeth bit onto her lip and pinched tight. “Mmm…Mr. Rutledge?”

He grunted as he hung up his hat and made for the kitchen. “Hnn?”

"Is everything...okay?" Her mouth opened and shut a few times, not even sure what she was asking. Mr. Rutledge was not someone she could seek reassurance from. And apparently, neither was Jamie. She needed to figure this out a little more. “I…N-nothing. Sorry, it’s just hot out, I guess. Feeling a little light-headed. Why don’t we get some nice cold lemonade? And at some point you said you’d let me see the farm records for my essay today. I won’t let you forget!”

She turned and followed him inside.

***

* * *

 

He watched her vanish back inside the cold and hungry depths of the farmhouse once more, following the old farmer. Things were stirring in him. Things he had not felt in a long, long time. A putrid, weary hatred was forming where apathy had once dwelled in one side of his ribcage. In the other side, something confused and longing and hopeful. They met in the middle of his sternum and made it hurt.

He’d tried to tell her, but the words still didn’t come out right. So many things to say and not the way he wanted to say. The look she had given him. It had been fear. But she was wrong. Because she didn’t need to fear him.

He wasn’t the thing to be frightened of. Not here. No. Even if she did not realize it, he would protect her.

_…By any means necessary._


	7. Chapter 7

They rode out the heat of the day in the safety of the indoors, though the dusty box fans in the windows did little but move the hot air around. Mr. Rutledge sat in his well-worn oversized armchair, a mostly empty glass of lemonade on the table next to him and a bag of frozen peas across his face. Mei, having changed from her muddy clothes, was laying flopped on her back on the sofa directly under a ceiling fan, only half-watching the weather channel that was still promising sun, sun, and more sun.

“…Mr. Rutledge,” she said again.

“I said soon.”

“Please, please, pleeeaaase?”

“Why do you want things that require moving?” he grumbled from under his peas.

“Because after you unlock the door for me, you can fall asleep. And we can use the thawed peas in a dish tonight. You can get more on your grocery run tomorrow.”

Mr. Rutledge sighed, but after another long moment’s pause he began the laborious process of hauling his massive bulk up out of his chair. Mei wasn’t sure which groaned louder, the man or the furniture, but eventually he tipped up onto his feet and loped off into the hall. She rolled off the sofa, following him into the foyer. An old colored glass lamp sat atop an antique table in a corner near more closed doors, and he opened the top drawer with a screech of dusty wood. She heard the rattle of metal on metal as his fingers sorted through whatever was inside, and he withdrew an old iron key before sliding it shut once more. She tried not to show too much interest, leaning against the doorframe casually when he turned back to her and held it out in his dirty palm.

“Third door down the hallway there. Used to be my grandfather’s bedroom, after they moved him to the first floor. Records are probably in the closet. Never had much interest in them, but if you want them for your essay, old papers are in there. Going to go have a nap.”

“Thanks Mr. Rutledge!” She took the key. “I promise I’ll be careful with them.”

He grumbled again and waved a hand dismissively, turning about to meander back towards the den for an afternoon of rest after a morning of hard, hot work. She envied him, really. A nap under a pack of frozen veggies did sound pretty nice, but she had work to do. The iron key was heavy in her palm, her fingers lightly skimming along the notched grooves at the head. As per instructions, she headed for this disused bedroom, to the third door along a dark hallway with no windows.

There was a thick layer of gray dust on the doorknob when she angled the key into its slot and clicked it open. Mr. Rutledge really must not have been in here for a long time, not even to clean. But with such a huge house and only being one person, she could hardly blame him. Most houses had their family records shoved away and gathering dust in one way or another, and the Rutledges would hardly be the only family to have buried secrets. It was just that the skeletons in their closet had turned out to be scarecrows instead.

The hinges squeaked noisily as she pushed the door open. The light from the window was eerily dim, blocked by both an overgrown bush and a windowshade that was old and brown and covered in spots of mold. It was a small room with little in it; a filthy dusty chair she wouldn’t have trusted her weight on, a mattress leaning up against a wall, and an empty white iron bedframe where the mattress probably had been. The wallpaper was old and peeled and covered in cobwebs, and the place smelled unpleasantly of mildew.

It looked like the room had been utterly abandoned years ago, even if Mr. Rutledge had been living only a few feet away. And the rest of the house was probably in a similar disarray, with ruined rooms and forgotten memories kept behind the locked doors of an apathetic man. But he had said that this room had been the sickbed of his grandfather from who knows how many years ago. She had no idea if anyone had slept in here since his death.

Mei wasn’t the type to be superstitious. Someone dying in this room shouldn’t have weighed so heavily on her mind. It had probably been decades. It was a silly thing, to feel like she was being watched. She didn’t believe in such things. But then again, she hadn’t believed in spooky scarecrows with mystical powers before, either. The very thought made her skin prickle into little goosebumps, and a cold chill swept over her. Maybe she would hurry a little faster in here…

She only hoped that mold hadn’t gotten to the papers she needed. Leaving footprints in the gray veneer on the wood floors, she strode to the closet and pulled open its folding slat door. The stench of moldy clothes and mothballs was overpowering, coughing and waving away the disturbed clouds of accumulated filth, the closet stuffed with moldering old coats and clothes and more boxes of forgotten things to sort through. The first box held only a hat, and the second and third were shoes, and the third box held photographs that initially excited her curiosity, only to find that they were rotten and faded yellow-white and so melted together as to be useless.

Clearing away the pile, she finally happened upon an old box that felt suitably heavy. A quick glance confirmed it to be full of important looking papers, and she hauled it out onto the floor and knelt in the dust to start digging. She’d hit the proverbial jackpot, information wise. A quick leafing through, and she already saw birth certificates, death certificates, bills for farm equipment and animals and seeds, land titles, well and water rights…and the further she dug, she saw documents that were no longer typed, but written, in increasingly older-looking cursive.

It was time to dredge through some Rutledge Farm history. After checking to make sure that no creepy crawlies would be joining her for the trip, she hefted her box of literary gold in both hands and made for the stairs, back to her room. Nudging the door shut with one foot, she left the room as forlorn and forgotten as when she had found it, pillaged of the only thing that had mattered. For there was simply nobody left to care, when even the moths and spiders and Mr. Rutledge himself had abandoned the place to rot so long ago.

 

* * *

 

Mei was soon overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information she needed to sift through. Her bed was completely covered in stacks of papers, and she had been forced to migrate onto the floor and was quickly filling that up as well, rifling through hundreds of years of history with nothing but a pen and her notebook to record her progress. Some of it actually was going to be useful for her essays and research papers, which she also couldn’t forget about no matter how much the mystery here intrigued her. Her professors would no doubt be interested in the history of the Rutledge apiary and the surrounding farmlands.

But nothing in the papers seemed particularly…unusual? At least at a first glance. Just the usual papers that anyone would have. And in later years, the record-keeping had gone completely off the rails, with Mr. Rutledge’s father’s death certificate being kept in a pile with bills for tractor repair and receipts for the purchase of a pair of goats. At the bottom of the box, with the earliest records, someone had at least had the foresight to laminate or bag them, the paper and parchment turned brittle and yellow with age. Among those, she found land deeds, the strung-together logs for honey production, and a drawn map.

A study of the map at least gave her an aerial plan of the farms that she still wasn’t entirely familiar with. She recognized the footprint of the house, and the pond, and the areas where the gardens had shifted around the house, and large squares for fields and fertile land. There was even a square that looked to correspond to Jamie’s sunflowers, though like with all the others it was blank with no title. But near the back of his field, beyond where she had dared to tread, there was a much smaller rectangle…a little drawing of a barn. She couldn’t remember seeing a barn there…had she?

And then near the northern borders of the farm, there was another place she had not visited. By the crosses drawn inside it, she supposed it to be a graveyard. Mr. Rutledge had said that his family was born here and died here, so it made sense that they had a family plot within their land. Maybe it was worth visiting to take a few pictures or see if Jamie had known any of them? She stored that away for later.

The Rutledge lineage had certainly devolved throughout the years. After much organizing, she found that there had been at least seven Rutledges and their spouses who owned the land after the great great grandfather. But only a handful married or had children, and the bloodline had grown smaller and smaller until it had dwindled down to Mr. Rutledge himself. And all of them, every single one of them, had been born and buried here. She found that a bit odd. How was it that not a single member of his family had left? Every family, no matter how tight-knit, had stragglers or black sheep who strayed. Some Rutledge over the centuries would surely have left or gotten married or abandoned the farm entirely?

But none had. The only fresh blood brought in was the rare occurence when a woman was brought into the family as a wife, and they were all buried at the farm too after having children who would also not leave. Drawing up a rough family tree, she soon had matching birth and death certificates that belied that _nobody_ had left the farm. And so many of them died rather young.They were born here and they died here, centuries of the same family circulating in one spot and slowly dying off until there was only one left…

Mei had never seen anything like it. Was it a religious thing? Some sort of rural family ritual? Had they been trapped here? Was Mr. Rutledge trapped here, in this place that he said had no future? And there was no record of any ‘Jamie’ among the Rutledges, so what relationship did he have with them?

And what relationship did Jamie have with…anything? He spoke of blood under the sunflowers as casually as one might discuss the hot weather. She hadn’t realized what his choice of colored crayons had meant before, how fixated he’d seemed on the red. And how the red was what kept his field green. A field fed with blood. Did he not realize what a horrid concept it was?

She was reminded of poor Penny, of her red-spattered carcass wrapped in a tarp in that hastily-made grave. Or the bee that had died on her pillow just so he could stay beside her. Jamie seemed to have no qualms with the concept of killing. But Mr. Rutledge was very much alive despite the two seeming at odds. And Jamie had also sworn to ‘protect’ her from…something or other. But was he out there killing things so his sunflowers could stay green? What kind of blood did he mean? Could it be animal blood? Human? Whose?

She knew so little, and every time she tried to find out more, she ended up knowing even less. Frustrating, but hardly unheard of in the world of academia. Like any project, this simply needed further study.

Picking up the laminated booklet of crop and honey archives, she leaned up against the bedpost and stuck her pen between her teeth as she leafed through it. Like the family, the farm had shrunk over the generations. Mr. Rutledge hired equipment occasionally to come harvest his fields, but with only one man to the farm itself, the produce list got smaller and smaller. Only the apiary remained mostly unchanged, with logs of honey harvests dating back hundreds of years, corresponding with the crops; carrots, heather, berries, oat, what, clover-

She paused, teeth clenching so hard her pen almost cracked.

Near the end of the book, in an old cursive script that was difficult to read, was a word that caught her eye. Sunflowers. Sunflowers had been grown and harvested and sold after the Rutledges has been established here. There were several yields of sunflowers and flavored honeys recorded at the very beginning of the farm, with the great great grandfather, and then…had simply stopped, and never been listed again. Even though the sunflower field itself remained as cheerful and inviting and completely untouched to this day.

What had stopped it? Was Jamie responsible for this too? Who better to ask, than the entity himself? Plus all her questions about the bloody fields… The next time she saw him, he certainly needed to start doing some explaining.

There was little doubt that he would come if she called him, but he had already showed up outside the house once today and that had thoroughly rattled her nerves. She already had so many tasks on her to-do list, and getting caught was not one of them. Mr. Rutledge seemed to be many things, but he was not stupid, and having a scarecrow gallivanting around his home might end badly for everyone involved. Maybe after he had started watching television for the night as he usually did, she would slip down the trellis and make a break for it. Although seeing Jamie in full scarecrow regalia in the dark might be a bit… Well, she would worry about that later.

It was good that she hadn’t called him, because it was not long before she heard Mr. Rutledge calling for her. Carefully navigating the absolute mess she’d made of the papers, she leapt over to the door and headed down the stairs. Mr. Rutledge, apparently refreshed from his nap, was waiting by the doors and holding out the bag of now completely thawed non-frozen peas.

“Pens are stinking quickly in this heat…You want to cook, or shovel the pig shit?”

She took the peas, looking down to where they dripped on the welcome mat. “What if I surprised you and said I wanted to muck the animals?”

He looked taken aback by that, pausing before rubbing at his neck. “Oh…Didn’t think you’d- Okay, let me-”

“I’m joking, Mr. Rutledge. Nobody would choose to shovel the pig pens, and I think you want me to cook. It’s okay to ask me to cook.”

“Didn’t want to insult you.”

“I like cooking. And you seem to like what I cook. It’s actually kind of flattering.”

He looked down almost sheepishly. “It’s just nice. Not knowing what you’ll be having for dinner, not making it yourself. It’s always something new. Haven’t…had anything new. In a long time.”

A little pang of guilt rippled through her. Her ploy had first been to empty his larder, but it seemed he genuinely had grown to appreciate and look forward to her cuisine. Mei looked up at him, smile softening. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tease you like that. I’m happy to cook, really. Although we’re getting a little low on things again, so I’ll make up that new grocery list for you. Any requests?”

“The ones in the baskets. Dim Sum.”

“I knew those would be your favorite! How about I show you how to make them? That way you can have some whenever you like, after I leave.”

He turned his head very slightly. “Mei…”

“Hm?”

“…Nothing. Never mind. Just tell me what to get and I’ll take the truck out tomorrow.”

She started to answer him, when there was a flicker of movement behind him in the open door, out in the front yard. For half a moment her heart seized, thinking that a certain someone had come calling once again. But then she breathed out and smiled, covering her mouth with a hand to hide a laugh. “Um, Mr. Rutledge, I think you have a bit of a problem. Someone couldn’t wait for her pen to be cleaned.”

He turned, then groaned when he saw a very familiar pink and brown streak go trotting across the gravel driveway. Pulling on his hat, he hefted his immense weight into a jog as he went after her.

“Damn it, Winifred!”

Mei snickered and waved to them both, as the old farmer began yet another chase with his escape artist of a pig. “Good luck, Mr. Rutledge!”

 

* * *

 

They sat at the table still scattered with dirty dishes from supper, with Mei spooning at a bowl of ice cream and Mr. Rutledge sipping an evening coffee. The television droned faintly in the den nearby, though it was barely audible over the shrieking crickets and frogs. The last light was fading fast, and she could see the wink of fireflies turning their lights on and off, out in the still night air.

She took another bite of vanilla and fudge swirl. “Still no idea how she’s getting out? It has to be digging, right?”

“No holes. Can’t figure it out. She’s always been a tricky one.”

“Mm. Oh, I was sorting through your papers earlier. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there, under all that dust.”

“Oh? Find anything?”

“You…had a very extensive family here. Have you ever looked at your family tree? It was a bit massive.”

He shrugged. “Never bothered. Didn’t matter.”

“Your family seems very loyal to the farm,” she said, still prodding. “Nobody seemed to leave it.”

“We don’t.”

“…Is it okay if I ask, is it religious?”

“No.”

“Some other reason?”

“Yeah.”

She stared at him expectantly, pushing up her glasses. Mr. Rutledge merely took another long sip of his coffee. She was used to him evading her questions or not answering at all, but this time, curiosity was getting the better of her. It might have been dangerous to prod at him this way, and it would be obvious that not all of it was pertinent to her essay papers, but still she pressed on.

Mei cleared her throat politely, stirring her melting ice cream. “This is the part where you tell me the reason, Mr. Rutledge? Or…Are you not allowed to say it? Is that it?”

“S’not that.”

“Your family has been farmers and honey harvesters for generations. You said you were homeschooled in this house, haven’t ever been far away, and have lived here your entire life. But…You said there’s no future here? I guess it bothered me a little. What made you say that? Are you okay? …Mr. Rutledge?”

“Still not used to having company around. Since my folks died.”

“Am I bothering you? If I’m doing something that you’re not fond of, please just tell me so and I’ll take care of it right away.”

“No. It’s nice to have company. Just not used to it, is all. Made me think about things and how they could be different here.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He looked out the open kitchen window, with its sun-faded floral curtains, out over to the winking fireflies drifting across the dead grass. He lifted his coffee again, tilting it enough that she could tell he had finished it, before setting it down with a delicate clink. Leaning back in his chair, he seemed to ignore her for longer than was necessary.

“Do you like it here, Mei?” he finally asked. “Here. This farm.”

That wasn’t answering her questions at all, but she nodded anyway. “It’s nice here. I guess I’m not used to being so rural, but it’s nice. You can see so many stars at night, and I love all the fresh produce, and all the fresh air, and the animals and the bees…” She tried to study his face, but could find nothing, and she faltered somewhat. “I mean…I do like it here. Granted, the internet connection isn’t the greatest. And I’m worried the crops aren’t doing so well. And-”

He continued staring out the window. “If you could stay here, would you?”

Mei’s brows knitted. “S-stay? I mean…Erm? I guess I’m not sure what you’re asking me, Mr. Rutledge? Would I stay here? Do you mean like, for another summer? A year? Forever?”

“Would you?”

“I’m…not sure?”

“…Neither am I,” he said, and rose from his chair, gathering up the soiled dinner plates to stack in one hand and carry them over to the sink. “I’ll wash up. Make sure you have everything on the grocery list for tomorrow.”

Mei stared at his turned back. “Mr. Rutledge…Are you okay? I know I’m just an apprentice, but if there’s anything I can do? Is it something I said? If you want to talk, I… I mean, I know I’m not family-”

“It’s better that you’re not. Family.” He sunk both hands into the soapy dishwater, head down. “Excuse me. Just…long day. Tired. I’m tired.”

“Mr. Rutledge…”

“Good night, Mei.”

There it was. He was cutting her off, and she knew better than to try again. He busied himself scouring steel wool against dishes and pans and a pig-shaped teapot. Pinching her lips in silence, Mei stood and very quietly placed her ice cream bowl on the counter beside him. He didn’t even look at her, still cleaning, and she wished she could tell if it was anger or sadness or if any of it was truly aimed at her. Like so many other things here, she simply did not know.

She left him be, trudging up the creaking steps and shutting the door to her bedroom. Her floor and bed was still littered with papers from his family history, but why was he so utterly loath to speak of them? And his eerie question about her staying…What did he mean? An unpleasant feeling weighed down in the center of her gut, and she thought back to Jamie’s warnings before.

 _Dangerous_. Was Mr. Rutledge truly dangerous?

Stepping over the scattered records, she moved past her sunflower, to her open window. Trying to clear her head, she leaned heavily on the sill with her head hanging and her eyes closed, breathing deep of the hot, dry night air. Uttering her last breath as a long, shuddering sigh, she looked out across the sleeping farm, biting her lip before speaking aloud.

“Jamie?”

There was no answer. No buzzing bee or (thankfully) no wasp or anything. She had no idea of the range or scope of his powers, either. Maybe he hadn’t been able to hear her? She waited for a minute or two, and was taking a breath to call out again, when she saw the lights.

The fireflies were shifting all at once, as if seized by a breeze that simply wasn’t there. The hundreds of little motes of light all went out at the same time, and there was simply blackness. Then, their luminescent yellow glow returned, in a rippling wave of moving light where they had all gathered in a crowded line leading out into the dark fields. It was a beautiful sight…Unnatural and eerie, but beautiful. The fireflies all pulsed again, beckoning her as they moved out away from the house.

Mei frowned, setting her jaw. She hurried back to the window, hopping up and out of it. Throwing out her arms, she balanced her way along the uneven rooftop and over towards the newly repaired trellis. More careful in shimmying down it this time, she made it safely to the ground with a final little hop, both feet thumping solidly into the dirt.

She cast one glance back, at the yellow glow of her bedroom window, and the fainter light and humming television from the kitchen on the other side of the house, where Mr. Rutledge spent his evenings. But a closer glow blinked on right in front of her glasses, as a firefly lit up and drifted towards the moving wave of the others. Following it, she turned and saw the shifting mass of bio luminescence making her a trail to follow.

Which was exactly what she did. With wary frustration in her heart, she went to find the one who might give her the answers she was still seeking. With determination in her every step, she followed the lights.


	8. Chapter 8

The fireflies lit up around and in front of her, hundreds of little tiny glowing motes of light that showed her the way. The dead grass crunched beneath her feet as Mei stumbled towards the fields. Like a living curtain, the tiny insects shifted before her, circling around her and surrounding her with their dull yellow glow before fading away behind her, stark and beautiful against the darkness of the summer night.

The endless buzzing screams of the crickets almost drowned out her footfalls as she reached the edge of the cornfield, but she heard the rustle from within the yellowing leaves of the stunted corn stalks. Jamie must have been meeting her halfway between her home and his. The string of fireflies blinked as they drifted forward through the vertical shadows of the cornfield, to where their strange master must have been waiting. Taking a deep breath, Mei flung out both hands and walked forward, parting the stalks before her and vanishing within.

Dried, dying leaves brushed all over her, reaching like fingers to touch and tickle, grabbing covetously as she passed. And still the little yellow lights pulsed ahead of her, leaving her to blindly crash her way through and follow them…until she staggered free into a clearing, and there were two much larger and brighter yellow lights waiting for her.

Jamie’s unearthly eyes turned towards her, lighting his masked face in a very unpleasant way as his torn and stitched grin somehow widened. He lifted upright slowly, towering above her as he stepped forward on spindly legs. His long arms opened wide in greeting, and for a moment he seemed intent on embracing her. Mei stiffened, shoulders hunching and posture closing up and drawing inward. But he paused before he could wrap himself around her, eyes turning off and on as he blinked down at her.

Instead, he lifted one gloved hand, its aged leather glove curling whatever digits were enclosed inside, until only finger lay crooked and outstretched. With a strange reverence, he drew it slowly closer to her face, until its cracked surface dragged gently and carefully up her cheek. He was trying to straighten her glasses, though the gesture seemed oddly intimate.

“ _Mei._ ”

He removed his hand, and she reached up to where it had been. She could feel a faint trail of grit and dirt where his glove had touched her, sifting under the pads her fingertips. The fireflies still circled around them, winking off and on while the steadier glow of his eyes remained. Taking a shuddering breath, Mei looked up at him and managed a half smile in the face of his rather terrifying countenance.

“Hi, Jamie.”

“ _I heard you. I heard you, showed you the way._ ” His strange buzzing voice seemed a little steadier now, no longer going up and down at random, and there was a deeper thrum of what she could swear was genuine happiness.

“I-I thought you might be able to hear me. Even though I’m not sure how. Can you hear everything here, at the farm?”

“ _Only where ears are._ ”

She wasn’t certain what that meant, but nodded anyway. That was the least of her concerns. She would question him about that too, but maybe later. Reaching out one hand, she held it up until a firefly alighted on the back of her knuckles, crawling up and around one of her fingers. “Did you ask them to lead me here? It was very beautiful.”

“ _You liked it? Very pretty, just for you. Prettiest for you,_ ” he nearly purred. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not, but she could swear his voice was clearer than usual when he answered.

Did Jamie even understand the concept of flirting? Was that what he was doing? With anyone or anything else, she could have sworn it was flirting. She had never been wooed by a magical scarecrow before. It was doubtful that the women’s magazine columns had any advice about such things; sunflowers and picnics and dead chickens and a living light show that had led her straight to him. It was certainly flattering in its own strange way, and she couldn’t help but to bashfully lower her head and try to focus on the insect instead as it unfurled its tiny wings and fluttered away.

“Oh, um. Th-that is very nice, Jamie. Thank you.”

“ _What did you want? Come sit! Talk to me?_ ”

He sat down before she could say anything, with a rattling crash that seemed too heavy to just be straw. Patting the ground a little over-excitedly, he motioned for her to do the same. Mei blinked down at him, but could think of no reason to say no. She was more delicate about sitting down, lowering down and catching herself on both arms before her rump hit the dirt. He moved no closer to her, but wrapped his spindly arms around his knees and made that thrumming noise again.

“ _So happy you here. You see me watering earlier? You see me? The best._ ” He straightened up again in a rather ridiculous way, smug and proud over something so silly.

That brought a half-hidden smirk to her face. Apparently her strange companion was a braggart. It made his spooky features and glowing eyes a little easier to handle, somehow. “I saw it. Yes, you were the best. I’ve never met a scarecrow as good at watering as you.”

He made that noise that was supposed to be his laugh. “ _Ha! Yes, I’ll help you. From now on_.”

“Actually, you can help me. I wanted to talk to you about some things,” she said, hoping she wasn’t being too rude. “I know this is odd, but…I guess everything is odd here. But I want to know what’s happening. I want to ask you some questions, if that’s okay? I know that it’s hard for you to answer, sometimes, and that’s all right. But I want you to try, okay? For me?”

“ _Yes. Yes, I try for you._ ”

“Thank you, Jamie. You told me before that I’m not in danger. I’m still not in danger here, am I?”

He turned towards her, posture a little more tense and serious. “ _No danger. Make sure of it. I’ll protect you._ ”

“But if there’s no danger, what are you protecting me from?” she asked. That question seemed to unsettle him, and he drew back from her very slightly, needing to think. For a while he didn’t seem to be able to answer her, so she tried again. “Is it Mr. Rutledge? You said he was dangerous. Are you going to protect me from him?”

He uttered an unsure noise.

“I’m sorry, but I’m just trying to figure out what is going on here, at this farm. What you are, and what he is, and everything else. And you must know a lot about everything here. You’ve known him since he was just a little boy.”

“ _Yes, nice little fat boy. Good one. For a Rutledge,_ ” he said with a muffled sound like a snort.

“Don’t be rude. And you see? You two used to be friends before…something happened, I guess? What do you mean that he’s good ‘for a Rutledge’? Did you know the other Rutledges?”

“ _All of them._ ”

“I found his family documents and I’ve been looking through them. This farm goes back several generations. That’s hundreds of years. And you’ve been here all this time?”

“ _Since first Rutledge…to last._ ”

“But Mr. Mako is the last one? And you were friends, before.”

“ _Little boy…Big now. One of them. All along._ ” His voice dropped to an almost growl, resentment clear. “ _One of them, all along._ ”

“One of what, Jamie? You mean he’s a Rutledge? Part of his family?”

It was strange, but the scarecrow somehow managed to look uncomfortable even without a true face. His shoulders drooped and he clutched one arm over the other. “ _Rutledges just like the rest. I knew. But thought he might be different…But then… Little boy was so angry. But he shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have—_ ” he made a strange noise, almost a moan. There was pain behind it. The fireflies lit up around her one by one, flaring in response to his outburst.

And as anyone would react to another in pain, she reached out and tried to comfort him. No matter how strange and scary he was, he was something lonely and hurting, even if she didn’t know why. She tightened a fist briefly, but outstretched her hand and went to place it on the rough and torn flannel of his shirt, touching his arm just as carefully as he had touched her cheek earlier. The yellow light of his eyes turned off and on again, blinking as they turned towards her. The lights drifting around them dimmed slowly.

“It’s okay,” she told him, despite not being sure if it really was. She’d been lying so much recently, and she hoped that this wasn’t among them. “Jamie. It’s going to be all right.”

He reached out, and cautiously placed his gloved hand to her arm as well, mimicking her and leaving behind that gritty residue against her bare flesh. Still, she tried to smile as comfortingly as she could, and tightened her fingers around what felt like a solid limb. Even if she wasn’t sure how he might react to contact like this, she tried. It was all she could think to do.

“Both you and Mr. Rutledge seem like you have something bothering you, like something is wrong. I want to try and help, okay? I’m not sure what’s happening, but if I can help, then I’ll do my best.”

“ _Mei is a sweet girl.”_

“Maybe you can tell me what started this fight between you?”

“ _Little boy hates me_.”

“Why would he hate you? Please, try to tell me. Did something happen to him? You didn’t do something to him, did you?”

“ _Not…him…_ ”

“What happened, Jamie?”

He looked away abruptly, as if scolded or guilty. Mei blinked, then leaned to try and catch his gaze again.

"Hey, it's all right. You can talk to me. It's just talking. Please try to tell me."

“ _Took her away…I took her away. From him. Didn’t want to. Didn’t mean…_ ”

The little insects around her flared their lights, the entire field glowing an eerie yellow. Mei bit her lip, not liking his words and not liking where this seemed to be leading. But she needed to know, and she held steady and persisted. “Who?”

“ _She wasn’t allowed…to leave! Nobody leaves!_ ” The buzzing noise was back in his voice again, stronger, more violent. Something about it made her head twinge with a low and aching pain, something familiar. He looked down at her, little fireflies crawling over his masked face. “ _None of them can leave._ ”

“Why can’t they leave?” She thought back to the long list of names, all the members of the family who had been born here, and had died here. None of them had left. “But Mr. Rutledge leaves, sometimes? To get supplies and food and things. So they can leave—”

“ _Sun set down,_ ” Jamie moaned, his words becoming clipped and harsh as they had been before. “ _Sunset. Always back, inside border._ ”

Mei took a quick mental note of that. Mr. Rutledge’s homeschooling, his never having gone beyond the nearest towns, and barely venturing to leave the farm at all suddenly made sense to her. And no wonder the family tree had been full of men and women who had been born here and died here. There was a lot more going on within this place than she had guessed.

“ _Talk other things please Mei please…_ ”

He made another noise and Mei was acutely aware that she might have been pressuring poor Jamie a little too hard. He was getting better at speaking to her, she had noticed, but he was still stilted in his speech and easily riled. But he was giving her answers where Mr. Rutledge would not. And even though part of her knew that she was reaching a limit, she still pressed on with her questions.

“But Jamie, we can’t just leave things like this. We have to face them if we want to help, right?”

“ _Mei please…_ ”

“So the Rutledges always have to be at the farm by nightfall? Within the border, do you mean the fences? They have to be back within the borders of their land or…What happens? Did something happen to Mr. Rutledge? And who is ‘her’?”

“ _Wasn’t…supposed to…_ ”

“Wasn’t supposed to what? Jamie, what did you do?"

" _Do? No no no, didn't! No no no..._ "

"O-okay. No, it's okay."

“ _Didn’t mean it, didn’t know!_ ”

There was an unpleasant twinge at the front of her skull, like the beginnings of a sinus headache. It made her wince, lifting two fingers to delicately touch between her brows and trying to ignore it. “Ah…! No, it’s…it’s okay, Jamie. We can figure it out. Just try to calm down--”

He pulled away from her, wrapping both arms around his spindly knees and lowering his head. “ _No no no no no no…_ ”

She drew back from him quickly as his buzzing whine was felt between her ears. “W-we can talk about something else! We don’t need to—”

“ _Didn’t mean it, didn’t mean it, no no no!_ ”

His voice went high and shrieking and sending pain lancing through her forehead. The fireflies pulsed stronger than ever, brilliant and yellow…and then dropping down. She saw them, their lights starting to fall as they went out, one by one. Little tiny bodies and shells hitting the ground noiselessly all around her, too tiny and fragile to make a sound as their husks dimmed and went dark, littering the dusty soil. His rage was overwhelming them, killing them.

“Jamie…Jamie, stop!” she lifted her voice, wincing through the high pitched buzzing in her ears, holding both hands to her temples. Maybe it was killing her too, if it got any stronger. This was quickly going out of control. “Jamie! Stop, please!”

He doubled over, curling in on himself with a sound that she could not even begin to describe, and the dead fireflies continued to rain down around them both, until there were none left and the shadows were dark around her. The twin lights of his eyes were the only thing around, but they were getting smaller and smaller. Or perhaps it was her vision, as everything narrowed down to a pinhole. The buzzing became a roar, then a scream. Her skull felt like it was going to burst open, and suddenly she was on the ground, just as curled up as he was.

The noise burned, legs kicking as she spasmed in the dirt. The lights were far away, and she was far away, and everything hurt. Everything hurt so much, maybe if she just stopped existing…

“Jamie—!”

The lights went out.

* * *

 

  
There was a very faint sound in the dark.

Crying.

Someone was crying. It sounded very young. Somewhere far off, a child was sobbing.

Her eyes opened, but everything was foggy and the colors were smeared and wrong…The sky was purple and orange and awash with dark rain clouds drifting fast far above her. It was starting to get light out, perhaps? Had she been knocked out and then slept until morning? She shifted, and realized that she was soaking wet all over and the dirt was dark. Had it rained? She couldn’t remember it raining. She couldn’t remember anything. Her head still buzzed and hurt, but it had faded into a dull, continuous ache.

The child’s crying got closer. It wasn’t the false whine that children made when they didn’t get their way. This was deeper, sobbing and hiccuping and out of breath…they sounded scared. Terrified, even. She had to find them, to try and find out what had happened, how she could help them.

Her limbs shifted and lifted her up out of the corn stalks. The corn seemed smaller than before…or was she taller? And her limbs felt heavy and alien on her own body. Why did everything feel wrong? What had happened? Everything still hurt, but she had to move. She had to try and help.

She wavered on long, unsteady limbs as she finally stood upright. She was too high up. One hand lifted to part the swaying rows of corn, and her arm was long and thin and covered in torn and stitched fabric, and she was wearing an old, cracked leather work glove…

She wasn’t her at all. It was Jamie who strode through the rows of corn, and brought her with him.

The stalks parted, and she was looking at the front of the farm. The house stood bleak and tall against the backdrop of a stormy sky, and the light was muted and gray as the sun went down. The trees were smaller and the wood looked younger, but otherwise it was the same. Her attentions turned when the sobs came again, towards the gravel and dirt path of the driveway and the fences beyond. The cries came from there, from a very small figure staggering towards them.

In but a few long strides and sickening blurs of movement, Jamie was there against the fence, one lanky arm straining and reaching out. Just beyond him, a little boy kept stumbling down the drive and she saw the reason for his cries. He was a small but portly little thing with a bit of a gut, perhaps around six or seven, with dark hair and round features that she couldn’t really make out behind all the blood. He was hurt, and badly. He limped on a leg that didn’t seem to want to move with him, and he was clutching one arm to his chest, delirious with pain and fear. And all of him, his entire body and all his torn clothes, were drenched with rain and blood.

Mei couldn’t tell if the fear she felt was hers or Jamie’s. But she was there as he desperately reached out, looking from the hurt little boy to the rapidly lowering sun. She felt them make a noise, and her throat hummed like the wasp that had been lodged in her throat from her dream earlier. _Hurry. He had to hurry._

The boy staggered again and nearly fell, half collapsing as he finally made the last painful few steps towards the fence where they were trying to reach him. But it was enough. Their fingers closed around his good shoulder and pulled, lifting him up and off the ground and physically dragging him within the border, all but throwing him inside before the last rays of the hidden sun disappeared altogether. The boy screamed the whole way, the force of it causing him to land on his wounded side as fresh red pooled in the wet dirt.

Mei and Jamie leaned over him, frantic, reaching to try and stand him up again. But he screamed all the louder and aimed a weak kick their way. They reeled back, giving him space. The boy still sobbed but his brow furrowed in sudden anger, baring stained teeth up at his savior.

“You! Get away! Go away!”

They skittered back another step, but it wasn’t enough. The boy was struggling to sit, shivering as he dragged himself half upright. Leaving his hurt limb to drape uselessly at his side, his good arm reached out and groped blindly for the stones from the gravel drive. Bloody fingers found an easy supply of them, and he began hurling them at the towering skinny figure not far away.

“Go away, Jamie! Get out of here! Go to hell!”

Strong words from such a young boy, but he spat them with such loathing and hatred that they hurt far more than the stones themselves- most of which missed by a mile, while the others bounced harmlessly off their hard chest. But his words, those lodged inside her head- their head. The buzzing got stronger.

There was shouting from the direction of the house. They moved their head and looked, and saw movement by the front door. A rock bounced off the lens of their eye, and they turned back to face the bleeding young Rutledge still trying to drive them off with all his might. Mei desperately wished to stay, to make sure the young boy would be all right. Dream or not, he was hurt. He was hurt, and now she could feel Jamie hurting.

But the shouting was growing louder and the boy cursed them over and over again, weakly pelting them with rapidly failing strength. He hated them. Or, he hated Jamie. And the scorned Jamie was rebuffed one last time as he tried to reach out to him again. It was not to be. He fled, and once more the world blurred on all sides of her until she felt sick.

Back in a field. The corn field where he could watch them closest, hidden away. From there, their head turned, looking to the hilltop and waiting. Waiting, even though the sun was down and nobody else would be coming. Nobody else was coming.

The shouting went quiet, and the boy’s cried stopped abruptly. The buzzing ceased all at once, and their eyes closed—

* * *

 

Her eyes opened, and she flailed all her limbs at once, thrashing in the dirt. Darkness. Everything was dark. Was she awake? Her glasses were askew on her face, but when she focused she could see starlight above her. She was back in the field, back to that night. Her lungs hurt, gasping and scraping for air, and she was soaked in sweat and dry dust. When she moved, dead fireflies fell down into her lap, tumbling down her shirt and tangled in her hair.

She managed to struggle up and sat, placing her clammy forehead in both hands and moaning. Trembling violently, she was so horribly cold despite the summer heat. She couldn’t stop shaking, and she still wasn’t sure if she was herself or was still them both, or if she was then or now, or where…

The night lit up yellow again as Jamie’s eyes opened, where he had been sitting undetected just across from her.

“ _Mei, you fell asleep,_ ” he accused, as though he hadn’t nearly burst her head open and dragged her into some phantasm nightmare that had left her reeling.

“What was that? Jamie, how did you— What was that?!” She swallowed thickly, biting the inside of her lip so hard that the soft skin threatened to break. At least the sting distracted her from the fading remnants of humming agony still left in her head.

“ _What what?_ ”

“What was that! I saw what you did! I saw when you—” Dragging a hand down her sweating face, she looked at him aghast. The scarecrow merely tilted his head at her curiously, as if not understanding her alarm. So she took another breath and asked again. “I was you? I mean, I saw through you. Back when…I think it was Mr. Rutledge? Was that him? That little boy. He was hurt. And then—” Another breath. “— and I was with you, in whatever you are! Wasn’t I? Was it a dream?”

“ _Dream_?”

“When I fell asleep just now, like you said. I saw things; pictures, sounds, things playing in my head. That’s a dream…Do you dream?”

He thought for a moment, looking down at the scattered dead insects all around them, then turned his grinning mask back to her. “ _Dream? Drrreeeaamm? No. No, I remembered._ ”


	9. Chapter 9

Memories were powerful things, and Mei knew that. But to be able to project memories through violent hallucinations was definitely something unknown to her. Just another thing to add onto Jamie’s ever-growing list of mysterious abilities.

Her senses were still reeling. One moment she had been trapped behind his eyes, feeling the rain and the diminishing warmth of a sun that had set nearly fifty years ago— and the next, she was back in her own body in the simmering heat of the summer drought, surrounded by slaughtered fireflies and dying corn. And they had both felt so real that it unnerved her as to which was the true reality.

But that whole disaster with the young Mako, the memory of the bloody and wounded boy, had once been Jamie’s reality. To him, it was a memory. He remembered. And somehow, he had brought her into it, without seeming to realize he had done it at all.

Clenching her fingers into the sweat-drenched fabric of her shirt, she eyed the grinning scarecrow across from her. “Jamie, I think you were making me dream. I mean, making me remember. I-I was behind your eyes, and I saw things. I think I was there with you.”

He uttered a rasping, questioning buzzing noise.

She continued. “That was Mr. Rutledge, wasn’t it? That little boy… He was hurt, and crying.”

“ _You saw?_ ”

“I think I did? You pulled him inside the fence, but he was covered in blood and angry. Why did he seem so angry at you?”

Jamie’s noise became a displeased one, a low frequency growling hum. He averted his gaze, the lights of his eyes moving off her. But he didn’t seem as angry as she had seen him before, more of a resentment-filled sorrow. “ _Just Rutledge. Should have known, just another._ ”

“Jamie, he was just a scared little boy. What happened to him? Why was he…bloody? Did something hurt him…?” She trailed off, not wanting to ask the next obvious question. “…Did you hurt him?”

The dream— or the memory— whatever it had been, had unnerved her. And not all of it made sense. The boy had already been bleeding as he approached the farm, and Jamie had been waiting inside it. And she had felt the frantic desperation behind his actions, reaching for the little Mako and trying to drag him to what she had assumed was safety. But then that anger…the way Mako had blamed him? Blamed him for something he had done?

She’d hoped that he would say no, or deny it, or maybe even get a little angry at her for even suggesting such a thing. So it was of no comfort to her when he didn’t answer her right away. And after a few moments she realized he wasn’t going to answer her at all. Instead he drew himself up even tighter, his long skinny limbs folding up like a stricken spider. The scarecrow hid behind his knees, hunching down as the light from his eyes was hidden once more and she was thrown back into darkness. He uttered another noise, not quite a whimper.

There was a little answering pulse in the vein on the side of her skull. But this time, there were no fireflies left to pulse their lights along with it. He had already killed them all, even if he had not meant it. Mei could not help but wonder if there were other things he had not meant to kill. But intention or not, the little clearing around them was a killing field.

Perhaps not the only killing field. There was red under the sunflowers…

He grasped onto his masked face with one hand. “ _Wasn’t what…Didn’t mean it…_ ”

Another sharp lance through her temple made her wince and hiss a little breath. No matter her curiosity, she wasn’t sure that she could take another of his memories so soon. And perhaps neither could Jamie himself. He had started to rock a little bit, hugging himself with his own spindly limbs in a rustle of old metal and straw. Maybe it was best for the both of them if they avoided the ‘red’ topics for now. For his sake as well as hers.

It had been a good reminder that Jamie was not like her; that he was still dangerous. For all his warnings about Mr. Rutledge that he couldn’t verbalize, he was dangerous too. Even when he didn’t mean to be. But beneath it all, he was still something so clearly hurting and alone and in need of companionship…maybe even a little guidance. He’d already improved so much in just a few days just by having someone talk to him like a normal person, and she hoped she could keep helping him.

He was part of this. Whatever was happening at this farm. Maybe it was something he had done, or something he had been. Perhaps he had his own reasons for remembering the things that had happened here. But if she could figure out the strangeness behind Rutledge Farms, she could help Jamie too.

Feeling guilty for having pushed him to remember something so clearly distressing, she sighed and scooted over in the dirt, pulling herself to sit next to him. Wrapping her own arms around her knees, she rested her cheek on them and looked at him sideways. “Hey. Jamie.”

One eye ‘opened’, and the clearing lit up yellow again as he looked at her.

Mei offered him a little half smile. “It’s okay. Let’s not get upset. We can talk more about that later, all right? I’ve been asking you so many questions, haven’t I? Why don’t you ask something about me? Is there anything you want to know?”

That seemed to take him off guard. His other eye lit up, slowly unfolding from his hunched fetal position. “ _Question…you?_ ”

“Sure. I know I’ve been pestering you with my questions. How about you pester me with one? Ask me something. I’ll answer anything…!” She paused for a moment, faltering, then bowing her head sheepishly. “I mean, almost anything?”

It was as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He fell back into a puzzled silence, tilting his head this way and that in an almost swaying motion. As she watched, she was heartened to see another little flash of yellow that wasn’t his eyes. A single firefly crawled out from the ragged collar of his old flannel shirt, scuttling out onto his chest in an almost disoriented manner before it glowed its helpful little light and continued to search for a mate. Perhaps it hadn’t noticed the ground covered with the corpses of its dead companions. Or perhaps it did, and simply could not comprehend what it meant.

“ _Mei question_ ,” Jamie said after another moment, unwinding his arms and leaning back relaxed once more.

“Mm?”

“ _You still…scared?_ Of me?”

Oh. That was quite the question. She thinned her lips, biting into the lower one as she thought it over. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t want to offend him either. And she couldn’t help but notice his voice was…lower? Or there was less of a buzzing quality to it? For a moment she could swear it almost sounded normal?

She took a breath, letting it out as a sigh before resting her chin atop her knee. “I’m not as scared of you was I was before. The first time I saw you, I was pretty scared. You seemed pretty scary at the time, but not as much anymore. I’m not even sure ‘scared’ is the right way how I feel about you now? Maybe a little wary, I guess.”

“ _Wary?_ ”

“Wary. Or I guess you could say…hm, a little cautious about you, maybe? There’s still a lot about this place I don’t understand. And you, especially, I don’t understand. I guess that’s why I’m asking so many questions. I think I’m like a lot of people. The more I know, the less scared I am.” She offered him a little smirk. “Besides, you seemed to think it was funny when I was scared of you before.”

“ _Everyone was scared of me,_ ” he said. “ _Was…used to, scared._ ”

“Everyone? I guess you mean the Rutledges. And you can be kind of scary. Even though sometimes I don’t think you mean to be.”

Jamie went quiet again. The firefly flared its wings and fluttered up and off the scarecrow’s shoulder, glowing dimly in the night. Mei’s eyes followed it as it drifted around them, counting the pauses between its flash pattern.

“ _Sometimes, I mean to be,_ ” he finally admitted. “ _Scary. They deserve it._ ”

“But there’s no ‘they’ anymore,” she pointed out. “It’s just Mr. Rutledge. And me, I guess. What use is it to scare either of us?”

He ran his glove over his masked face uneasily and grumbled another of his insect noises. “ _Nnnnhh._ _Maybe._ ”

It seemed some of her reasoning was getting through to him, at least. He was much easier to talk to when he wasn’t agitated, or ‘remembering’ things. She would have to pace herself on trying to force him to remember. And maybe she really had been prodding at him too much, like he was a science experiment and not a…person? Or something like a person. A person that seemed to be happy just talking to her.

“ _Mei question_ ,” Jamie said, still leaning until his scrawny arm was almost touching hers. “ _Eating sticks. What?_ ”

“Eating…sticks? Oh! Chopsticks! I guess you might not have seen those out here. We use them to eat where I’m from, we call them Kuàizi. I can show you how to use them. Although it might be a little hard with those big gloves on. You have to use your fingers like this.” She showed him with imaginary chopsticks, angling her fingers and pinching them together. “It takes a little finesse to get used to them.”

He mimicked her, bringing up his hand and clenching his gloved fingers in a very awkward manner that probably would have snapped any chopsticks he might have tried to use. “ _Kuaaa-zi. Chopsticks.”_

“Well,” she said, “Maybe a little more gently than that? And I know I’m not supposed to bother you with questions but… Do you eat? I wasn’t sure, so I made you all that food. Did you not like it? Maybe there’s something else I can make for you. I hope I didn’t offend you?”

Jamie’s unnerving laugh buzzed and hissed once more, and this time she really did feel the brush of old rotted flannel as his arm touched hers and stayed there. The scarecrow smiled, words hissing from the mask’s open mouth, with the smell of moldered hay along with it. “ _No. Don’t eat. But. I thought, Mei is sweet girl._ Kind girl. _So, give picnic back.”_

She stayed very still. “That was…a very nice gesture, to make food for me too,” she said as diplomatically as she could. It was probably best she didn’t bring up poor Penny. After all, she had offered him meat in the first place, and he had just returned the gesture. She only cleared her throat a little nervously. “I’ll try to remember that you don’t eat anything. Maybe I can bring you something else? More drawing things, did you like those? Or music! Maybe I can get my phone working and show you some videos. Something to help pass the time?”

“ _Time pass anyway_.” He shrugged.

“O-oh. I mean…Yes, I suppose it does. I guess it’s just hard for me to think of you spending so many years out here alone with nothing to keep your mind occupied.”

This time, he leaned into her enough that it was clear she was supposed to feel it; the brush of old flannel and the rustle of straw beneath it. And there it was again, something in his voice, trying to make itself heard beneath his normal droning tones. “Not alone anymore. _Talking to me. Coming to see me._ ”

He lifted his gloved hand again and very hesitantly brought it towards her, much like when he had straightened her glasses. But her glasses weren’t crooked this time, and the way his fingers curled… He was trying to stroke her cheek; a gesture of intimacy, she was sure of it this time. Was this scarecrow, or whatever phantom was within it, interested in her in that way? Did he even understand such things? Was it responsible of her to be doing this if he…

She lost her nerve. At the first brush of his fingertips in her hair, she pulled away and pretended to scratch an itch on her arm and looked at the blinking firefly instead.

His hand fell away, quickly folding his arms back up as suddenly chagrined. He made an awkward sort of a noise that was almost a cough, high and unsure. Like a boy who had unsuccessfully tried to put an arm around a date at the movies.

“S-so,” she continued quickly. “Maybe I’ll try to find you some music and some games. How about puzzles? Mr. Rutledge has a few puzzles. We’ve even been working on one together at the coffee table. Although they’re not really meant for outside—”

“ _You and Rutledge puzzles together?_ ”

“Hm? Oh, yes. The one we’re working on is a picture of the Alps. He seems to like the ones with pretty scenery. I was thinking of buying him some new ones, like photos of beautiful places? Since he can’t…go to any of them…” she trailed off, not certain it was best to bring that up.

Indeed, somehow she thought that the scarecrow was scowling now. How she could tell, without him having a true face, she had no idea. But there was something petulant in his voice that belied his irritation. “ _You and I puzzles together. Better at them, you’ll see…Hmph. Rutledge._ ”

She frowned at him. “Jamie, don’t be like that. It’s not a contest. Puzzles are games, they’re supposed to be fun. And I think it’s kind of sweet that he likes them. They’re probably the only time I see him having any fun.”

He grumbled to himself, sounding like a bundle of hornets’ nests again. “ _You think sweet Rutledge?”_

“Well I mean…I guess I wouldn’t call the man himself ‘sweet’. But I still am not sure why you think he’s dangerous. He just seems sort of lonely and sort of sad. He’s been here all alone for such a long time. You both have.”

“ _You like Rutledge?_ ”

She sighed. Maybe this wasn’t the best direction to go in, if he was developing a crush or…she could scarcely think of it, ‘sexual’ desires for her? Was Jamie even a ‘he’? He definitely wasn’t human. She had no idea how to handle something like that. And she definitely didn’t want to rile him anymore against the old farmer. Maybe it was best to be diplomatic for now. “Mmm, yes? I certainly don’t dislike him. He’s a little hard to figure out, but he’s fine. So yes, I suppose I like him.”

“ _Mei question,_ ” he said again.

“Okay. Last one.”

“ _I can still see you, after you married?_ ”

“After I… Wait. W-what?” she said. That one took her completely off guard— so much so that her already-aching brain seemed to pop a fuse just trying to comprehend it. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but her shocked confusion left her with no words.

Jamie only blinked at her mildly. “ _After marrying. Still see you?_ ” He paused, but her silence urged him to try a further, “ _Please?_ ”

She finally managed to shake herself back to coherence, looking at him very strangely. “I’m sorry, but what on earth? After I’m married? Jamie, I don’t even have a boyfriend yet, or— What made you ask that?”

Now it was his turn to look at her like she was the odd one. Even though his scarecrow mask had no expression, he seemed just as confused. He even uttered a hacking up-note that might have been a scoff, like there was something obvious she was missing. “ _But…you’re here?_ ”

“I don’t understand…”

“ _You came. So…You marry Rutledge…Why else you’re here?_ ”

“What!”

Once more she was left sputtering, straightening her glasses repeatedly just for something to do with her hands. She’d been trying to avoid any more surprises, and the scarecrow had gone and dumped another into her lap. After a moment she just shook her head rapidly, outright denying it. Because the very idea was just that silly.

“Jamie, no. No no no, you’ve misunderstood. Mr. Rutledge is… No, it’s not like that at all. He’s way too old for me, and not my type, and—” She swallowed thickly, grabbing onto the front of her top to fan some air between the sticky cloth and her suddenly very sweaty skin. “Absolutely not. I’m just here assisting him for the summer as part of my studies. Studying the bees, and agriculture, and— Ah-ahaha! Oh, you scared me with the idea, even. I’m not marrying Mr. Rutledge, no.”

He didn’t laugh along with her. Her nervous giggling went unanswered for too long. The single firefly alighted on a dead corn husk and flashed its lights on and off again.

“ _But…you’re here,_ ” he insisted again. “ _For marrying. You worried? I’ll protect you._ ”

“No, no. There’s nothing to protect me from. I’m only here for a little while. Only until the summer ends. I think there must have been a miscommunication somewhere. A-a misunderstanding. I have absolutely no plans to get married. At all. To Mr. Rutledge or anybody else.”

“ _You think you are not staying?_ ” His eyes went dim, apparently an indication of his crestfallen realization. His whole lanky body drooped, looking for all the world like a draped scarecrow prop instead of the living thing he was.

“No, I’m not staying. I’m sorry. I’ve learned a lot on this farm and still have more to learn, and this place is nice and all, but—”

“ _But. You like it here?_ ”

His forlorn question made her think of Mr. Rutledge’s words earlier. He had asked her the same thing. Did she like it here? Did she want to stay here? Did…he mean for her to stay here? Did Mr. Rutledge hint about her staying forever? He had told her that she was the only one he had ever invited here, and that her small hands were good for the hives. It had been an odd thing to say, but she had chalked it up to him just being an odd man. But the other things he’d said too? That there was no future here…

Was he making a future? Did he plan to make her part of that future?

Even Jamie seemed to think she was staying forever. The very thought of it made her skin prickle, and uneasiness settled in her gut yet again. The fact that the scarecrow had seemed so absolutely certain of it, too… She hoped it was just another something that had gotten garbled in translation between the two.

She licked suddenly dry lips. “Jamie, why did you think I was supposed to marry Mr. Rutledge?”

“ _To wife. Bloodline, is last one, fat little boy. So you came here._ ”

Her mind raced back to the Rutledge family tree. Nobody could leave, so occasionally an outside bloodline was brought in through marriage. And after becoming a Rutledge, they stayed and eventually died on the farm too. It suddenly made a morbid kind of sense that this creature thought her another of them. This had been going on for generations, and he had watched it all happen. And he thought it was happening again.

“No,” she said resolutely. “No, that’s not why I am here.”

“ _Has to be,_ ” he replied. “ _Otherwise…_ ”

His glowing eyes stared off into the darkness of the corn stalks and he fell into an uncomfortably long silence. The firefly flashed again hopefully, somewhere behind him. Mei was just thinking of trying to steer the conversation somewhere else when he spoke again.

“ _Otherwise, is…bad. But don’t want you to go! I can protect you, find a way for you to stay. But…but good! Not red!_ ”

“Jamie, I’m sorry. But I was never here to stay. I think you just…Well, you must have just gotten mixed up about Mr. Rutledge and that whole marriage thing, is all! That’s okay, everybody makes mistakes,” she said, voice turning cheerful again.

“ _But—_ ”

“No, it’s fine! That just means that I have to figure things out while I’m here, in the time that I have. I think if I can help you remember a little more, then maybe we can find out why you and Mr. Rutledge are at odds. And then we can all sit down and talk about it and maybe even be friends again. And we can also figure out if there are more like you, more scarecrows or whatever is making you a scarecrow. And maybe even find a way so that both of you can leave the farm again. You won’t be alone anymore. Wouldn’t that be nice?” She made herself smile.

“ _Nice, but…Have Mei now—_ ”

“So!” She stood up again, brushing the dust off her shorts in a very animated way. “So no, I’m not getting married! And Mr. Rutledge isn’t dangerous! And neither are you! We are going to solve this. It’s fine, and everything’s fine, and I’m going to help make it fine. I mean, even more fine!”

Jamie didn’t seem to know how to answer that, though he mimicked her and stood up as well, looming far above her. Watching her, he even dusted off his own rear, though the filthy overalls and work gloves were beyond a lost cause. “ _Mei?_ ”

“It’s…getting really late. And I think your memories made my head hurt. I think I should head back home. I mean, to the house. I mean, for the night. Not staying like forever…Or any of that.” She was babbling, more scared than she was trying to let on. “Y-yes. We can talk more later, but I think I should head back.”

“ _I’ll take you home?_ ”

“Hm? Oh! Yes, I suppose you can take me home. If you want to come—”

He moved before she was finished accepting, and before she could blink or even comprehend, she was airborne. The scarecrow had gathered her up in both lanky arms, hefting her up under her knees and back. She tried to inhale to protest, barely able to see him bend his scrawny knees…and then the world blurred on both sides of her and the forward momentum was so sudden that her head slammed into his chest and stayed there. Wind whistled and cornstalks cracked around them, and she couldn’t even hear his footfalls in the dirt. The air turned cold as they moved through it, prickling her skin. Clenching her eyes shut, she could do little but brace herself against him, jolted to and fro as he carried her.

And then, just like that, they stopped. He slammed to a halt, and only his grasp around her kept her from forward momentum, clutched to his hard chest. The air was still and warm around her once more, encompassing her like a humid blanket. Mei scraped a breath in while she could, right before she started to flail and kick in his grasp. “W-woah!”

They were back by the house, at the edges where the back garden met the back yard, out by the animal pens. Hobbling forward with her still in his arms, he loped across the flat dead grass, up to the very back of the house itself. Mei grabbed onto the straps of his overalls in alarm, voice a low hiss. “Are you crazy! I thought you would just walk me back! Jamie! Jamie, you can’t get so close! What if he sees—”

“ _Window._ ”

He bent his knees again. Oh no.

Jamie sprang like a cricket, bounding straight up into the air. The wind whooshed by her again, and Mei couldn’t help it. As her stomach was left behind somewhere on the first floor, she uttered a sharp scream.

“AAAHHHH!”

Launching himself off the side of a crumbling chimney, he alighted on the roof with a barely perceptible thud. Mei clung to him in a death grip, fingers clenched white and tense, pulling apart his rotten flannel shirt at the seams. Jamie’s burlap mask only grinned down at her all the harder, gallantly going to set her down just outside her open window like a damsel in the romance novels.

Unlike the romance novels, her legs were shaking like a newborn colt and she almost started to skid down the slope of the roof before he grabbed onto her. He uttered that comforting thrumming noise and took it as her trying to pull closer to him, and she was about to give him a piece of her mind when the low bass of the tv paused abruptly in the living room below. She heard the screen door creak open and shut below them, and then Mr. Rutledge’s voice called across the back yard.

“Mei?”

Her eyes widened, and she turned and physically dove headfirst into the window. It was not her most graceful entry, crumpling onto her arms and chest and rolling like a very awkward pill bug. Stumbling back to her feet, she lunged across her room, a storm of disturbed papers blowing behind her. Yanking open her bedroom door, she stepped out onto the banister and looked down.

“Y-yes! Mr. Rutledge?”

There was a confused pause before the screen door shut again, and the old farmer was moving back into the foyer, looking up at her. “…Did you scream?”

“Yes, sorry! There was—” She looked back to her bedroom door, and saw Jamie leaning into the hallway and waving at her. Her voice broke and went shrill for half a moment before she got it back under control, starting to sweat again. “—There was a big bug in my room!”

That wasn’t technically a lie, was it? For all she knew, Jamison might have just been some big bug, with his influence over them.

Mr. Rutledge scratched his head with a low rumble. “Thought you were outside for a…Hm. Need me to kill it? The bug?”

“No!” she squawked, before clearing her throat. “No, no need for killing. It just startled me, was all. I’ll shoo it outside. Sorry I disturbed you.”

He gave her a another nod and a shrug, then turned and lumbered back towards his old armchair and his nighttime television. Mei tore back down the hall and immediately began bullying Jamie back into her room, putting both hands on him and shoving and completely forgetting that he was a dangerous possessed entity in a scarecrow suit. He made a surprised sound and stumbled back inside and she pulled the door shut behind him, pressing both arms over it.

“Jamie! You can’t be here! Not in the house! Oh, Mr. Rutledge is gonna kill me!”

He waved a gloved hand. “ _Kill you? No, I’d know. No, not you, I’ll protect you_.”

“I didn’t mean literally! I-I mean…I hope not. But you can’t stay here, we’re going to get in trouble. You need to go back to your field, okay? Mr. Rutledge is going into town again tomorrow, and you can come see me then. I’ll just tell one of your bees. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He reluctantly moved back to her window, his long skinny body bending in a rather painful looking way to fit. Contorted, he twisted his masked face to look at her. And once again that buzz was gone from his voice, when he asked earnestly, “Promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

That seemed to be good enough for him. He nodded, easing out of her window with a gentle creak of metal and straw. He stood at the edge of the roof, and then there was a blur of brown and yellow and a rush of wind that sent her room’s floral curtains fluttering and dancing…and he was gone.

Mei let out a very long breath, collapsing to sit on the edge of her bed and placing her aching head in one hand.

It had been a long day and an even longer night. She had seen inside one of Jamie’s memories, though at cost to herself. She had seen the unexplained hatred of a young Mr. Rutledge, the last time the two must have spoken. She had learned that so many of those who came to this farm never got to leave again. And she had learned that Jamie expected her to be the latest of them.

Little wonder he was growing bolder with her, if he thought she was staying. But Mr. Rutledge had certainly not approached her on the matter, and there was no way she would accept, even if he did. So it was a silly worry, wasn’t it? If things really were dangerous here, then she could still always leave. Leaving would always be an option…Wouldn’t it?

Some tiny part of her thought that maybe she should leave. It would be the safest option, to simply give some excuse and then have Mr. Rutledge quietly drive her back to the bus stop. She could tell her professors that it simply hadn’t worked out, that she was coming to them empty-handed, and had nothing from her summer spent at a haunted farm with a mysterious old man and an even more mysterious scarecrow with strange effects and abilities that she hadn’t been able to study at all, and who would be heartbroken if she left. If she broke her promise…

_No._

Mei tightened both fists in her quilt, frowning down at all the papers and history scattered about on her bedroom floor.

She would be careful. Of course she would be careful. And maybe if she really needed to, she would flee. But there were still puzzles here to solve, and she was never the sort to give up so easily. Maybe there were precautions she could take, or exit strategies she’d make up just in case, but she had gotten herself involved in this. Even if Jamie and Mr. Rutledge didn’t know it, she was involved and she was going to find out more about what was going on in this place, and maybe even help them.

Resolute, she lifted herself up and went into the bathroom to begin her nightly routine. Because even it wasn’t forever, she was staying. And she still had a lot to do.

* * *

 

Out in the summer night, gray clouds moved over the stars and the moon. The night was dark; the world muted in shades of black and navy. From the corn field, there was only one lonely speck of glowing yellow, drifting across the dying grass.

The solitary firefly, the only survivor, flashed its lights on and off again; searching for the others, to find the ones like it, and find its mate among them. Where were they? Where had they gone? Away it went, trying to seek them out, occasionally blinking its yearning signal across the silent dark.

There was no answer.


	10. Chapter 10

She was back in the dream again. Or was it one of Jamie’s memories? Was he the cause of this? Although…it felt different. Somehow it was different. Why was everything in this vision so smeared and strange? The sunflowers around her were blurred and warped smudges of color, and everything looked like the world she saw when she had her glasses off. She was back above the field yet again, hung out on the pole above it all.

The sky above was wide and blue but it felt too close, like it was bearing down on her. The burning sunlight was hurting her again, searing against her skin that she still wasn’t sure was hers. And all around her…that hum of insects. They were blurred little things too; wasps and bees and flies and things she couldn’t identify- buzzing all around her and on her. She could feel them moving, the tickling of their legs and wings— like the wasp who had crawled into her throat before.

She could feel herself, but she couldn’t see herself? Perhaps that was why it felt more like a dream than it did a memory. She was a figment of a dream, something that was just a part of a more ethereal reality. But maybe while she was here, she could investigate this farm too? Or whatever version of a farm this was? If only she could get down off this…stupid pole…!

Mei struggled, trying to get her phantom limbs to respond. Everything hurt to move, but if it was just a dream, then it wasn’t real pain. She could work through dream pain, if she tried hard enough. And she was a girl who always tried her best.

Steeling her dreamself, she pulled at whatever bonds held her there. The blurry world around her warped a little more, wavering like a mirage in the baking heat. But she could see the greenery of far-off trees and the barn in the distance, and the little pointed roofs of beehives just beyond the flowers. She just needed to get free and be able to reach them.

She was fairly sure that she was supposed to stay on that pole, and suffer in that heat. The prickle of little insect legs danced across her face, and the hum of a wasp sounded dangerously close to her ear. But this was a terrible dream to keep having, and she was not content to suffer there. So she thrashed and pulled at whatever was tying her to that pole, and demanded that it let her loose—

There was a noise, like the sky was moving. And then she was falling and even though everyone knew that you never hit the ground when you fell in dreams…she hit the ground. She landed hard down on the ground, and the ground was not solid, but a sheet of liquid red: a tide of blood on top of the hard soil. Little ripples moved away from her, but she could see nothing in the putrid reflections atop that blood.

Red under the green. Just like he had said…

She made her way through the stalks, the blurs of yellow swaying around and above her…and growing brighter as the sky seemed to darken. Was night falling or was it a storm? There were no clouds here, but the sky definitely seemed to be getting darker. Blacker and blacker but without stars…and was it getting closer? Could a sky do that? Perhaps in whatever strange dream this was, it could? She tried to ignore it, and moved with greater urgency. The sunflowers parted before her, until she could see the end of them, and whatever clear yard lay beyond.

Just a bit further now. She could see the beehives first. They were old wooden things, alive and buzzing with a swarm that she couldn’t see. And red was flowing out from beneath them, liquid oozing and dripping down to pool beneath them. More blood? Were the beehives producing blood instead of honey?

The sky got darker, and an old rooster-shaped metal weathervane creaked atop the barn and her attention snapped towards it. She’d never seen this barn before. It was nothing like the one by the house. This one was decrepit and shoddy, with boards falling away and the walls crooked and cracked. It stood tall and strange against the black sky, and something foul was emanating from it. Perhaps it was a smell or a sound or something she could not describe, as it was just a dream. But it seemed to radiate…wrongness.

There was a flicker of soft yellow from within, visible between the green stalks and the rotten wooden boards.

A light came on in the old barn.

* * *

 

She had to get away. Mei flailed, kicking out both legs. They were hot and sticky and covered in the blood she had been wading through. The soil beneath her was soft and wet and the blood—

She was back in her bedroom, and the sheets were tangled around her lower half. It was sweat that had been soaking her, not blood. She was covered in perspiration again, wiping frantically at her exposed skin as she thrashed her way out of the bed sheets and away from the hot and clammy spot where she had been laying. All but falling onto the rug beneath beside her bed, she pulled off her pajama top and hurled it away from her. Cool air rushed over her drenched back and chest, her skin prickling with cold relief.

It burned when she breathed, and she realized she was hyperventilating. She swallowed down a last gulp of air and tried to slow it down, curling in on herself as she fell onto her side on the scratchy rug and hugged herself with both arms, fetal and shivering. At least now the pain felt real, and she was back in true reality again…she hoped.

It took several minutes to get her breathing back under control. For a while, all she could do was lay there, trying to get herself to believe that she was back in the present: that she wasn’t back in that awful dream. She lay there, counting every exhale and feeling every droplet of sweat as it rolled down her back. The muggy night air was still thick and humid and unpleasant, and her room was suddenly so small and dark and stifling. Eventually she uncurled and stood to shakily make her way across the room and turn on the old fan for some relief.

The mechanical whir as it rattled to life provided some comfort, as did the cold air that blasted across her chest and evaporated the sweat on her damp chest. She bowed her head and let it sweep over her, finally uttering one last shuddering sigh before straightening. A smeared splotch of color caught her eye from across the room. Much like in her dream, the sunflower looked blurry and strange without her glasses. It sat unwithered in the little vase of water she’d gotten for it, trying to care for Jamie’s gift. Even if she had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t the water that was keeping it healthy.

Its cheerful brown center and happy yellow petals were facing her, and for some reason she lifted both damp arms and clamped them across her breasts modestly. He wasn’t using that flower to spy on her, was he? She knew he could ‘hear’ her, but he hadn’t specified how. Could he see her through it too? It was silly to worry about at this point, but she tip-toed over to it and lifted one hand to carefully nudge the edge of its vase and turn it to face the wall.

Mei ran both palms down her face, her body still tired but her nerves shaken. She had managed to navigate somewhat through that dream, whatever it was. She hadn’t just been along for the ride, as when Jamie had remembered. It had been…somewhere? Somewhere else? Something else? As with any dream, it was nebulous and hard for her mind to grasp. But she had managed to get free, if only briefly, and see what lay beyond that field.

What if there was something beyond the scarecrow’s field, outside of the recurring nightmare? Although she couldn’t remember seeing a barn as tall as the one in that dream. Or blood-dripping beehives for that matter. And she definitely hadn’t seen a lake of red instead of soil. None of that added up. Maybe Jamie would have some clues there, if there was anything past his forest of sunflowers. Maybe she would ask him later. Along with the thousands of other questions she had for him, of course.

The breeze from the fan rustled her piles of papers and research, sending several of them drifting across the floor. With a sigh, she went to gather them back up. Among them were some of young Mr. Rutledge’s childhood drawings; the one depicting him holding hands and smiling with the towering figure of the scarecrow, and the crude portraits he had drawn of his family. Mei could only suppose that these had been drawn well before that incident from Jamie’s memories. Before that, they had been friends. Perhaps each others’ only friends.

But that had been before a young Mako had staggered back to the farm, covered in blood. That had been before he had screamed for Jamie to get away from him, pitching stones and sobbing with pain and fear. Before Jamie had done ‘something’. And there had been a ‘her’, a ‘her’ that Jamie had taken away somehow. Although Mei couldn’t really think of a ‘her’ on this farm other than Mako’s family at the time? And he had no sister in the records. His mother, perhaps?

She glanced down to the drawings again, depicting his versions of his family. It was difficult to tell what she looked like, from a child’s drawing. It looked like she had been a rather large woman, with curly black hair. But Mei was fairly sure the real woman didn’t have arms longer than her entire body, or tiny little stumpy legs without feet like in the drawing.

Making her way across the floor, the overhead lamp was clicked on, causing her to squint and wince as the room was flooded with light. She pulled on her glasses and lowered back amongst the mess, shuffling through the stacks of folders and research she was still in the middle of sorting through. Where had that family lineage chart gone?

She found it eventually, tucked into a messy pile. There was Mr. Rutledge’s name at the very bottom, the lonely survivor of a rapidly dwindling family tree. And just above it were the names of his parents, along with the dates of their births and deaths. His father had lived a long life, being one of three children, though he was the only one to breed. A wife must have been brought in for him, as Jamie had said. By a tie of marriage, a woman’s name was next to his.

 _Kora Rutledge_.

They had erased any traces of her maiden name, but kept her birthday and her death day. And after a few more minutes of ruffling through papers and doing some quick calculations, she finally had more pieces of this particular puzzle. Kora had married at the age of 26, moved onto the farm, and three years later she’d had a child. Their two lines came together, leading to Mako Rutledge. But the date of her death belied that she had died young…when her son had only been seven years old.

Her son, who had made his way back alone, back to the farm that was his sanctuary and his prison. But she had not been with him. Because in the scarecrow’s own words, he had ‘taken her away’.

Had Jamie killed Mr. Rutledge’s mother that fateful evening? She hated to even consider it, but the scholar in her could not deny that that was where the evidence was pointing. Even if she hadn’t yet figured out how. Her companion had proved that he was unconcerned with the concept of killing things, and he’d made it clear how he loathed the family whose land he haunted. But to be capable of murder? Murdering the mother of a young boy, especially?

The muggy night air suddenly felt cold, and she found the sweat-sodden lump of her pajama top and pulled it back on. A quick glance at the clock told her that she still had a good hour or so before sunrise. Maybe she could get in a bit more research about Kora and the rest of the Rutledge family since she was awake. So she climbed back into bed and took up her pen and her notebook yet again, getting back to work.

 

* * *

Back in the field…The sky was still dark now. Why wasn’t it bright and sunny anymore? The insects were buzzing and she was back in—

* * *

 

“Mei? Mei!”

She startled awake with a little snort as a familiar voice called for her downstairs. Sharp pain lanced through her neck as she lifted her head, moaning aloud as she stretched some life back into her sore muscles. She must have fallen asleep again, sitting up and slumped over her half-open notebook. And judging by how the last few notes she’d jotted down were not making any sense what so ever, it looked like she’d fallen asleep while writing.

Tossing her books aside and massaging her shoulder with an unhappy groan, she dragged herself out of bed and opened the bedroom door to shout, “Sorry! Mr. Rutledge?”

“Breakfast,” his voice called back. “The most important meal of the day. Can’t miss it.”

“Ah! I woke up and then accidentally fell asleep again. I’ll be right down, just give me a minute! Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

She skipped her morning shower, throwing open her drawers to pull on some fresh clothes and combing her fingers through her hair. A dead firefly fell out from where it had gotten tangled in her locks, and she bit her lip and put it next to the shriveled husk of the bee from some days before. Her dresser was turning into a graveyard all its own. Turning the sunflower in its vase so it could face the morning light, she hurried to slam her bedroom door and went pattering down the creaking wooden steps.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She apologized the entire way down, up until she slid across the kitchen linoleum and right into her chair at the breakfast table. “Oh! You made frittata!”

“Hrm?” Mr. Rutledge stood at the stove, wearing an apron that looked comically tiny on his gigantic form. The straps couldn’t even reach all the way around his immense girth, and dangled uselessly at his front as he turned about with a sizzling pan. “What’s a frittata? This is egg mess. Using the last of the stuff in the fridge before I head into town.”

“Well, may I please have some egg mess, then?” She requested politely, as he loomed over and scraped a portion of the egg and vegetable medley onto her plate. Taking a slice of toast from the center of the table as well, she began dutifully scraping it with honey as she did every morning’s breakfast. But not before examining the jar of honey itself, holding it up to the light. “Okay, I’m going to get this one. Don’t tell me, Mr. Rutledge.”

“Mm. Infused that batch. Give a guess.”

She noted its slightly pink tinge, squinting behind her glasses before reaching her tongue out to taste a smear atop her bread. Rolling her eyes back in a slightly exaggerated parody of taking in a wine’s bouquet, she smacked her lips a bit before answering, “It’s…peach infused! Right? Is that peach?”

He looked slightly pleased at that, his chair creaking as he sat across from her. “Peaches. Good job, Mei.”

She managed a tired smile before digging into her egg mess and toast. The sunlight streamed in to warm them, and the birds were singing gaily and the cicadas had already started, interrupted only by the tinkle of windchimes as a little breeze disturbed them out on the porch. Mornings were always so nice here on the farm, even if it was so terribly dry and hot when the sun got higher. And even despite the drought, there was something that seemed idyllic about this simple, rural way of life.

If only she hadn’t known about the darkness lurking around every corner here, and the red under the sunflowers.

Another day had dawned and it was another chance to get to the bottom of the Rutledge family’s dirty secrets, and what they had to do with the living scarecrow out in the field. Kora Rutledge was now a name of interest, and Mei had Kora’s only son sitting right across from her. Maybe it was best to approach him first, even before asking Jamie about her. But Mr. Rutledge was such a quiet man, and even though he had warmed to her presence, he was still a cold and difficult-to-approach kind of a person. She couldn’t just ask him about bees and scarecrows and sunflowers and the fate of his mother. She might have been too curious for her own good, but she was not so cruel as to bring up his deceased family out of nowhere.

Clearing her throat, she stirred her egg mess around her plate and tried to think of the best way to frame her questions. “Mr. Rutledge? I’m still sorting through all those family records you let me borrow. They’re very interesting. Thanks for letting me see them, by the way. You have such an extensive family history here.”

His shoulders lifted very, very slightly, and Mei could tell he had raised his guard and was on the defensive. Even if all he uttered was a low, “Mm…”

“Er, yes. I’ve been trying to get them all into order again. Chronologically. It’s actually amazing that I happened to get assigned to a farm that’s been through so many generations.”

No answer. Mei swallowed and cleared her throat.

“There’s this really old map of the property layout, and I was hoping I could get your permission to walk around and take some photos? For my report?” She crossed her legs under the table uncomfortably, shifting in her seat at his lack of response. “I know you told me not to wander too far, so I thought I’d tell you first. A-and I saw that there’s a family plot on the map, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful by going there without checking first.”

He slowly lifted another forkful of egg mess to his chapped lips, chewing and swallowing in his usual too-long awkward silences. Mei hoped he was thinking it over. Instead, he took two more bites of his breakfast and she was just about ready to give up and change the subject before he finally answered.

“What kind of school report needs an old family graveyard?”

“Well I mean—It’s not necessary!” She held up both hands plaintively. “It’s just part of this place’s history, that was all. I was just going to take lots of pictures of the whole farm as well as your apiary. But I didn’t want to offend—”

“Mm…”

There was that noise of his again, the one that affirmed he had heard her but was of no help as far as being an answer. She prodded at her toast with her fork for lack of anything better to do with her hands, staring down at her plate.

“You can take your photos,” Mr. Rutledge finally rumbled after another long minute. He still seemed more intent on his breakfast than on her, lifting his cup of coffee. “But I’ll take you there, myself. Before I head into town. Go get your chores done. You’re already running late this morning.”

Despite the grumpy tone of his words, Mei brightened. “Oh! Thank you. I’ll try to be quick, just want a few pictures. Um. I mean, it will really paint just how many of your family’s generations have been here; this intimate connection with your land, all the Rutledges who came bef—”

He put his coffee cup down a little too hard, and Mei shut her mouth. He merely uttered a low noise in his throat, something that could almost be construed as a warning, then nodded his immense shaggy head towards the doorway. She made a show of pushing the rest of her toast into her jaws and hurrying to finish up, scuttling over to put her dish by the sink before fleeing the kitchen altogether, hurrying back upstairs.

Maybe she’d overstepped her bounds a little bit, but she had his permission. She hadn’t expected Mr. Rutledge to offer to join her, but perhaps the man was just being cagey about his family privacy. Frankly, she had no idea if she would find anything useful at the graveyard at all, but it was at least worth a look. And the photos might be a nice addition to her report on the farm itself. That had not been a lie. Mostly.

She hurried to complete her chores; checking hives and feeding animals and watering the parched gardens. Mr. Rutledge worked in his usual silence nearby, carrying wood and nails to finish building the pigs a new shade shed, to protect their soft pink bodies from the unrelenting sun. The water was running low enough that they could no longer refresh the mud that kept them cool. Winifred in particular was unhappy about that last point, and was giving him an earful as she ran about his feet and tried to trip him.

Mei finished first despite her late start, washing the sweat from her face and taking up her spot on the creaking wooden porch swing as she waited for him. A bee hummed through the air not long after, alighting near her arm and looking up at her. Mei didn’t let herself look back, though she muttered a low, “Hi Jamie.”

The bee waved a tiny front leg.

“I can’t really talk until later today. It’s still morning.”

The bee spun in an unhappy circle.

She pretended to shine her glasses down atop her lap as it crawled towards her. “Oh no you don't. Don’t be so impatient. I promised I’d come see you later, remember? There’s a grocery run later today so I’ll come then. But we still have things to do until then. Go on.”

If a bee could sigh, she could swear the bee sighed. It hovered back into the air again while she put her glasses back on…and then Mei blinked owlishly when it suddenly buzzed a little closer, rammed right into her cheek with its tiny fuzzy body, and then hurriedly flew off and out of sight. She was left dumbfounded for a moment. Had a bee just kissed her cheek? Did that count? What on earth?

“Mei. You still want to go?”

Mr. Rutledge was dabbing at her brow with a handkerchief, leaning his tools up against the porch. Shaking off the little peck she’d just been given, Mei swung her legs back down off the swing and hurried inside. Snatching up her phone and her notebook, she went clattering down the porch steps and moved to join him.

“Coming!” she said, and fell into step at his side. The old farmer loomed so large and so tall that he could throw her entire body with his shadow and her needing to take two and a half steps for every one of his. She always ended up needing to scramble after him in one way or another, but she tried to do it with a smile. “I hope it’s not too much trouble. I promise I’ll try to be quick.”

“Mm.”

“And…thank you, Mr. Rutledge. I mean it. I really appreciate it. A lot,” she said, still beaming. “It’s really nice to be able t—”

The toe of her shoe caught on a ridge in the path, and she tripped mid-sentence. Like some sort of idiot ballerina, she went sprawling face-first towards the dirt, and only stopped when her enormous companion lunged to the side and caught her. Flinging out one arm and snatching her around the middle, he managed to keep her from faceplanting by simply picking her up like a football, yanking her back up in mid-air. For a moment she hung there, looking down at the gravel that had been rapidly headed towards her, and then she was being tilted upright and gently set back onto her feet.

She fussed and straightened herself out sheepishly, embarrassment heating her cheeks more than the morning sun. “Sorry! Sorry about that!”

“Mm. Careful.” He started forward again.

“And thank you. Again.”

He paused in mid-step, looking down as if to start to answer her. But then he grunted sharply, lifting that massive arm again. Mei was about to question him when she saw why. That single little honeybee was attached to his forearm, its tiny form writhing angrily where it was stuck stinger-first into his skin. Mr. Rutledge barely reacted, only pausing to watch until it struggled enough that its barb detached from its own body…along with a string of its own innards.

The bee shuddered, weakening rapidly as it pulled itself apart in its rage. In aghast silence, Mei watched until its legs finally gave out…and the little bee dropped down dead, leaving its stinger behind. Mr. Rutledge barely reacted, glancing down as its little husk landed amongst the dried brown grass. He only flattened his thumbnail and scraped it along the wound, dislodging the stinger and casting it aside as if it were nothing. The honeybee’s suicide had been for naught.

“Hm,” Mr. Rutledge said. He stepped over it and kept walking.

Mei lingered there for only half a moment longer, frowning down at the spot where it had fallen. She looked up, glaring with disapproval all around her, but could not spot anything amiss to glare at. Then, with a little hop, she hurried to join Mr. Rutledge at his side once more. They walked on, and quickly left it behind.

He watched them go.

* * *

 

The Rutledge family plot was in the opposite direction of the sunflower field, closer to the little strip of woods that separated them from the main roads. It was still somewhat of a long walk, along a barely visible dirt trail that ran along the property fence’s edge. It was overgrown and ill-maintained, and the grass brushed at her calves as they traveled onward, grasshoppers skittering away from their path. She couldn’t help but wonder if a certain someone was going to send the poor grasshoppers on a suicide mission against Mr. Rutledge next, but luckily they seemed more interesting in fleeing.

Close to to the highway, close enough that she could hear the distant passing of an occasional car, Mei saw a rusted iron fence surrounded by trees. A crooked gate had been tied shut where the handle had broken off who knows how long ago, and was so laden with spiderwebs that it might as well have been sewn closed. Mr. Rutledge grumbled as his large hands fumbled to undo it, and the hinges screamed and spiderwebs snapped as he yanked several times to force it open.

“Haven’t been here in a while,” he admitted.

“That’s understandable, it’s okay,” she said. “They’re sad places. If you want a moment alone with them…?”

“It’s fine. Go on in.”

He beckoned her forward, and she brushed aside a few remaining webs to enter the graveyard proper. He definitely wasn’t lying about not having been here in a long time. The place was completely overgrown, weeds and wild plants choking the paths and blocking the names on the stones. She waved off a cloud of gnats that rose from the disturbed grasses, lifting her phone in both hands and taking several shots of the abandoned plots.

She heard Mr. Rutledge grunt as he turned sideways, squeezing through the open space at the gate behind her. But he merely lingered near the entrance, looking on as she knelt and began clearing away the overgrowth blocking the headstones. Most of the gravestones were very old, battered and smoothed from seasons of harsh weather. Some of the inscriptions had become hard to read, filled in with now-dead moss and mold. She pulled out her handkerchief to scrub the debris away, her camera clicking again and again.

A few of the names were recognizable from her studies of their records. She couldn’t seem to find an order to them. And most of the inscriptions seemed fairly normal, as far as graves went; words about God, and loss, and hopes to be reunited. The pictures would be nice for her report, but it seemed to be a completely normal family plot. It was almost refreshingly nomal…and a little disappointing, after everything else.

One of the older graves was so choked with vines that she had to call Mr. Rutledge to come help her remove them. The headstone under it was battered and worn, perhaps the oldest of them, and nature had started to swallow it up. But once the last vine had been ripped away and Mei had cleaned it up a little, she could make out the faint etchings in the stone beneath.

 _Nikau Tai Rutledge_.

It was Mr. Rutledge’s great great grandfather, the one who had founded this land. It was decorated with a simple but rather eerie skull face above his name. His stone had no birth date, but it did record his death. After a bit more pruning and cleaning she could even read the epitaph, damaged though it was.

‘ _The First to See Beneath, But to Rise Above — So Prosperity Blessed Him_ ’

It was nice that prosperity had blessed the man, but the words before it were certainly strange. He had seen beneath, but risen above? Was that some old parable or saying? Maybe a bible quote?

“Hey, Mr. Rutledge. Do you know what this means?” She asked aloud, reaching forward to touch the stone gently. “…Mr. Rutledge?”

There was no answer, and Mei looked up when the man suddenly moved past her, heading deeper into the little plot and behind a large stand of crowded trees and bushes. She hefted herself up and went to follow, having to make a little jump over a tangle of briars, and only narrowly missed slamming directly into the old farmer’s back when he stopped short with a strange little jerk. She windmilled both arms to keep from falling for the second time that morning, righting herself and peering at the back of his head in consternation before taking a few steps to the side to peek around his wide body.

In front of them, just behind the bushes, was an immaculately kept grave plot. There was no sign of vegetation or wear, standing in stark contrast to everything around them. Not a single weed grew within the rectangle of laid bricks and the headstone looked like it had been lovingly cared for and cleaned. When Mei adjusted her glasses and squinted, she could make out the name.

 _Kora Rutledge_.

This was Mako’s mother’s burial site. But even more strange than its well-kempt appearance amongst the ruins, was the splash of color that sat atop it. It was little wonder that Mr. Rutledge had halted so suddenly.

Sitting there atop his mother’s grave, at the foot of her headstone, was a single cheerful bright yellow sunflower.

* * *

 

Mei slowly looked up at him, unsure how he was going to react. Mr. Rutledge himself seemed unsure how he was going to react. He stood there, staring down at the grave plot, and swallowed thickly.

“Mr. Rutledge?” Mei finally asked gently.

He looked up, genuinely seeming to have forgotten that she was there. He pulled off his hat, uneasily running one large hand through sweat-dampened gray hair, and tried to find his words as he stared down at the flower. “Mm. I guess I left it…when I was here last…”

It was a piss-poor lie, and they both knew it. But Mei said nothing to the distressed old man, letting him pull ahead to stand at the foot of his mother’s grave. With a groan, he eased his bulky frame downward onto his knees, so heavy that she felt the ground shudder when he landed. For another long while he just sat there, before reaching out and going to pluck the sunflower from the base of the headstone. It practically gleamed, more yellow than the unrelenting rays of the sun, held in the palm of his massive hand.

But even as they both watched, it suddenly began to darken, withering and blackening on the edges and curling inward. It wilted at his very touch, dying faster than anything was supposed to die— and was only helped along when Mr. Rutledge suddenly clenched his fist around it with a sickening crunch, engulfing the bloom’s center as the once-yellow petals turned to brittle ash and sifted through his fingers. With a low growl, he threw the remains of the dead flower to the side, away from his mother’s plot.

Mei pinched her lips together and remained silent, making herself smaller as she hugged her notebook and papers with both arms to her chest. Mr. Rutledge leaned down, painstakingly brushing away the flower’s dust away from the headstone before placing one hand atop it, using it to help pull himself upright with a groan. But his hand remained there for a long moment, calloused fingertips brushing the smooth stone before he finally backed away and returned to Mei’s side.

She looked up at him, voice still soft. “Your mother? Kora Rutledge?”

“…Mm.”

“Are you okay?”

“Mm.”

“We can go, if you need. It’s all right.”

“It’s fine. Don’t remember much of her…Died when I was a boy.”

Nothing she didn’t know already, but Mei couldn’t help but be surprised that he’d told her even that much. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rutledge.”

“Mm. Wish I’d stayed.”

“Stayed?”

“With her.” He kept his gaze forward, stoic as before as he stood at his parents’ graves; one choked with weeds and forgotten, the other well-preserved and clearly mourned..even if not by him. “Don’t remember all of it. Was just a boy. But I was with her.”

Mei’s gaze lifted back to him. “May I ask if something happened?”

The man uttered a heavy sigh. “Went out too late. Milk had gone bad, needed more. Think she was baking something. I wanted to go with her. Was raining. I was bored. Got in the truck and we went to get groceries. Too late in the afternoon.”

She listened intently to the short, clipped answers he gave. He was not the most verbose of men, but she hung onto every clue he gave her. This was…important. And she paid close attention.

“Raining really hard,” he continued. “She let me get a chocolate bar. I remember that, for some reason. Remember eating my chocolate and us rushing to get home before…Mm. We were driving fast. Something happened, not sure what. Think she might have swerved not to hit a deer or an animal. Roads were wet.”

“Oh no…”

“Remember being flung around, didn’t have the belt on. Think I hit my head or went shocked. Woke up with the truck upside down, my arm and side hurting real bad.”

She remembered the memory of his younger self, staggering along the road and covered in blood. It had been a car accident, all along? Perhaps it had been shock that had made him angry enough to attack Jamie? Maybe she had expected the worst from the poor scarecrow all along and had made a mistake?

Mr. Rutledge pulled off his hat, fanning his sweating face as it faced the sun. “Crawled out the windshield. Glass everywhere, but couldn’t feel it. She was laying with her top half out of the driver side window. She was still awake, kept telling me it was going to be okay. She managed to crawl out but her legs weren’t working right. Broken bones, probably. Kept trying to stand but couldn’t. Didn’t have phones like yours, back then. Couldn’t call for help.”

“Did she—”

“Wasn’t the crash that killed her. Shouldn’t have gone out that late in the afternoon. Still far away from the farm, down in that ravine by the side of the road. Think she realized what was going to happen, eventually. Started telling me I had to get home. Started telling me I had to leave her there…Leave her there in that ditch while it started getting darker…”

Mei’s eyes widened in quiet realization.

“Tried dragging her a few times. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to leave her, but she kept saying I had to. Kept saying I needed to go, needed to start walking, needed to head back. ‘Get help’. That’s what she said. Even though she…” He sighed again, exhaling through flared nostrils. “She knew. Eventually started screaming at me to get out of there, driving me away, yelling. Guess she got desperate. Wish that hadn’t been the last time I’d heard her voice, though.”

“Mr. Rutledge…”

“Didn’t know what else to do. Walked home."

“I’m so sorry. That’s so terrible for a child to go through. And your poor mother.”

“Mm. They said the shock must have got to her heart,” he replied flatly. “They brought her body in the next morning. Life lesson, that day. A hard one. Never forgotten it. I…”

At a loss, she hesitantly lifted one hand and placed it upon his arm. His head lifted very slightly and grumbled a low tone of recognition, but that was all. Mei only patted him as gently as she could. That had been the most that she’d ever heard him speak, and it had been to pour his heart out about that night: a night that she had seen firsthand, through another’s eyes…

Another’s eyes that were currently watching them. There was a very faint little movement atop Kora’s gravestone. Another bee crawled across its surface, flickering its wings and going still.

Mr. Rutledge put his hat back on, turning back towards the gated entrance. “Didn’t mean to talk that much. Didn’t mean to take up your time…Take your pictures if you need them. You know the way back. Need to head out for the grocery run. You need anything not on the list? You want a ride into town?”

The grocery list was the very last thing on her mind, brow knitting in concern. “No, no, I don’t think so. And thank you, but I think I’ll stay here and get some work done. Maybe next time? And you’re not taking up my time. I’m glad to listen, any time. Not just for school, either, but…I don’t know? Just to listen? I know you d—”

“Yeah. Come back to the house when you’re done here.”

“O-okay.”

And with that, Mr. Rutledge turned and made his way out of his family’s graveyard, the very last of his line who would one day join those buried here. She watched him go, as he rounded the bend through the trees. The overgrown iron gate screeched open as he squeezed through, and she heard heavy footfalls leave and get further and further away as he must have started the long trek back towards the house.

She stood there, listening to the rustling grass and the wailing of insects, trying to digest everything that he had just told her. Terrible things had happened that day, during that storm. A frantic mother had driven away her only child, wounded and helpless, back towards the farm that she herself could not reach. No wonder that the young Mako had been so distraught. He had barely made it back inside the border before sundown…and he had been alone.

That had been why Jamie had dragged him inside the fence. That had been why he kept looking towards the road. That had been why he kept waiting, looking for the other figure that should have been following the boy…but was never going to come.

Kora Rutledge had been trapped outside their land, after the sun went down. She had still been alive. And it seemed that none of them, not even Jamie, had been able to leave to help her. But why? What had kept them here, and what killed them after the sun set? Was it still keeping both Mr. Rutledge and Jamie imprisoned here? …Was she imprisoned here? What was doing this?

Not only that, but it seemed that Kora had been the only Rutledge being mourned in this lonely place. Something or someone had been caring for her burial plot all these years. And they had been leaving sunflowers for her too. Clearly, she had been important, but why would he so lovingly care for this place if he had been the one to do this to her...?

There was a buzzing noise and a faint tickle. The honeybee landed on the back of her hand, its tiny body trailing on the backs of her knuckles as it crawled about. With a slow and careful movement, she brought it up closer. It fluttered and buzzed again, looking up towards her.

She pursed her lips, pushing her glasses back on her nose as she set her little bee companion with a stern gaze.

“Jamie. Let’s talk.”


End file.
